MOROCCAN MUSICAL ADVENTURE TOUR
Into the south, a Sousse Berber Ahouach and the Essaouira Gnaoua festival

normally 3rd week of June - contact us for dates

This tour takes you on an adventure through the High Atlas and Anti-Atlas mountains to a traditional Sousse Berber music night called an Ahouach.

The Ahouach is an event organised by ourselves in a small oasis village. The musicians come from this region and this is a chance for them to perform in their own backyard.

It is a truly wonderful experience and something few travellers ever see.

Afterwards you visit the Essaouira festival of Gnaoua and world music.

More than 150,000 people are expected to attend the festival. The music is a diverse mix of traditional Gnaoua Music, modern fusion, and international artists.

Spread over three main stages and a number of smaller outdoor venues it takes place in the heart of the old Medina right by the sea and the beach.

Other events include displays of traditional horsemanship on the beach and street theatre
Customer feedback – July 2005

“Although we've only been back for 3 days it seems ages since we were exploring Morocco! I think I can speak for all of us when I say that the Music Tour was a great introduction to a fascinating and friendly country. Brahim was a marvel and put up with our repeated questions with humour and good grace and was a mine of information. It was great to travel with a guide whose enthusiasm and love for his country - particularly the desert and the Berber villages - really came over. As well as transporting us around safely, Mubarak was a real character.

All the info you provided beforehand was very useful and gave us a good idea of what to expect, but in reality our expectations were exceeded. The tour encompassed such a wide variety of places I soon lost track of time and just went with the flow. Each of us had our favourites.

The Ahouach was definitely one of the highlights - none of us had ever experienced anything like it and we felt like honoured guests - it was great that the whole village could join in, that it wasn't just a performance for us tourists. The festival in Essaouira was good, although we did slack off a bit and didn't see as many bands as we had intended (although did much dancing on the beach!). It was really enough to just wander around taking it all in.

The town is an excellent place for some R & R and also for shopping...so we did. Beats Glastonbury any day. Any niggles? Not really, some deviations from the itinerary were balanced out by others...unless you're a stickler for itineraries it shouldn't be a problem.

Anyway, thanks for everything, I will thoroughly recommend you to anyone wanting to see the Morocco outside of the cities and resorts.

All the best!

Susan"

Brief Itinerary

Day 1 - arrive or meet in Marrakech
Day 2 - across the High Atlas.
Day 3 – across the Anti-Atlas to Tata
Day 4 – Music Festival Ahouach
Day 5 – to the coast
Day 6 – Music Festival to the Essaouira Gnaoua Music Festival
Day 7 – Music Festival Essaouira
Day 8 - Music Festival Essaouira
Day 9 - to Marrakech
Day 10 - to airport or independent

Day 1 - arrive or meet in Marrakech

Day 2 Journey from Marrakech to the "Tizi-n-Tichka" high pass (2545m) in the High Atlas and then down towards Ouarzazate. A short branch off the main road takes you to Ait Benhaddou, a splendid 12th century Kasbah which has been used as a location for filming (Gladiator, The Mummy, Lawrence of Arabia) and which is now a World Heritage Site. You spend the night in Ouarzazate.

Day 3 - a day travelling across the sub-Sahara to Tata. On route encounter amazing rock formations and Berber villages. Night in Tata

Day 4 - Traditional Music of the Anti-Atlas
Optional morning by the pool, or a visit to local caves where you can see extraordinary primitive Rock Art.
After lunch in Tata it’s off to an "Ahouach", a traditional music festival of the Sousse region.
This is a serious spiritual as well as musical occasion, the Ahouach singers or "Endamen" seeking inspiration in the moment to formulate their chants, the musicians embrace the atmosphere creating rhythms as they go. The audience becomes part of the occasion, the women praising singers for their eloquence with hearty throat cries.
This is not a night we are organising to entertain the tourists with quaint folklore--this is as much for the locals as for you. The music takes place early evening and we return to the hotel for the night.
Day 5 - morning exploring and lunch at Issaffen a small Berber village in the Anti-Atlas. This is where Brahim was born. Dragging Brahim away from his family and old friends it’s off towards Essaouira crossing the mountains and onto the plains towards the coast stopping for the night on route at a beach north of Agadir.

Day 6 - today you reach Essaouira and the festival where you will stay (day 7 and day 8) until we leave for Marrakech on day 9. A beautiful medieval fortress town on the Atlantic during the festival you are free to explore as you please. Part of the fun of the festival is just exploring, hanging out on the beach or in the medina and watching the crowds. The festival attracts people from all over Morocco and all over the world. At the festival we leave you completely independent. Essaouira is well established for tourism and as such has a wide choice of cafes and restaurants so you fend for yourselves and use the hotel as a base.

The Essaouira Festival of Gnaoua Music

Of all the music genres produced in Morocco, it is Gnaoua that has gained most circulation in the West. Jazz luminaries like Randy Weston, Pharoah Sanders and Don Cherry have recorded with master Gnaoua musicians, as have rock musicians Robert like Damon Albarn and Robert Plant.
Now Gnaoua groups such as Gnaoua Diffusion are experimenting with Reggae, Hip -Hop and Rap as well as working with African musicians such as Ali Farke Toure. DJ's from the west are mixing more and more the distinctive rhythms of the Gnouai.

The annual Essaouira festival has been held since 1998. Every year the festival in Essaouira attracts more Western and "World" musicians, who perform in their own right or jam on stage with the major Gnaoua ensembles from around Morocco. The overall sound is rich and full, although produced by only keyboards, guimbri, and the distinctive Gnaoua percussion, metal castanets known as qaraqeb. The true function of Gnaoua music is to propitiate the spirits at healing rituals, an inherent part of the music that has attracted the attention of western musicians in the past.

Day 9 is a short journey back to the delights of Marrakech (around a couple of hours) and a chance to catch up on any last minute shopping or sightseeing.

Day 10 you are escorted to the airport or you carry on independently as you choose.

Minimum Group size 5 people

Tour Price: £550 per person (£45 single supplement)
Price includes all accommodation, all transport inside Morocco, transfers, breakfast, lunch, evening meal apart from Essaouira where you are independent in your meals, soft drink with meals, all guiding fees. It does not include flights, insurance, alcoholic drinks and drinks outside meals, food and drink at the Essaouira Festival. Accommodation: in Marrakech, Tata, on route to Essaouira, and Essaouira the hotels are two or three star or equivalent. Food will be traditional Moroccan cuisine. We have no problem catering for vegetarians and vegans