NEW! 2025 West Africa: The World of the Spirits: Benin, Togo, and Ghana with the Granddaddy of all west African festivals: the Voodoo festival in Benin and the Akwasidae in Ghana for the Ashanti King. January 8-24, 2025 traveling with Kathleen Z. Fung, founder of Far Fung Places, and acclaimed West African cultural expert, Noah Katcha Messan.

Kathleen Fung has been traveling to West Africa since 2001. Her journeys with a quest have taken travelers well beyond the capital cities of West Africa to remote societies - some very secret -for a true sense of the African people. The pièce de résistance is the voodoo festival in Ouidah, Benin, where thousands of believers from West Africa and beyond gather to worship and appease the spirits of voodoo through prayers, rituals, celebratory songs, ethnic dances and voodoo ancestor spirits that leave you spellbound.

We explore Benin and Togo, two countries on the Guinea Gulf. Meet fetish priests, healers, and oracles, attend initiation rites, ancient ceremonies, and witness the voodoo festival with its magnificent, masked masquerade dances, like the Zangbeto, the ancestor guardian spirits of the night, who cleanse the villages of ‘evil’ spirits.

Journey by private boat across the still waters of Lake Nokoue to Ganvie, the largest stilt village in West Africa, past pirogues where fishermen cast humongous nets in the afternoon light. Feel Benin’s powerful past walking through the Royal Palace in Abomey built with relief walls decorated with symbols of the ancient Dahomey kings and a spirit house built with a mixture of clay and the blood of slaves.

Three nights in Lome gives us time to explore the Lome’s markets: the artisans’ and the Nana Benz market for authentic Dutch wax cloth, and the fetish amulet market. A day trip into the interior exposes you to a trance dance of Togo, whose ‘possessed’ fall into a deep trance, almost to the point that renders the person insensible to pain and even fire.

Leaving Togo we journey overland to Ghana, the first African nation to achieve independence in 1960, one of two English speaking countries in West Africa. We discover the beauty of the Lake Volta and Accra, the capital of Ghana with historical sights marking Ghana’s independence, and its famous funeral artisans who have taken casket making to a high level of art.

Take a look-see walk to see the hidden charms near Jamestown, the oldest quarter in Ghana, where we meet the coco-dada man who sings for his ‘sugar. The street art is profound here!
Leaving Accra, we travel along the Cape Coast with its resurrected 16th century slave forts, posuban military shrines, and bustling fishing villages.

Still immersed times past, we drive up to Kumasi, the center of the largest ethnic group in Ghana, the powerful Ashanti, presided over by a King, who is a vital link to the ancestors and God.

Our program highlights the Akwasidae Festival, the blessing of the royal stools, symbolizing the authority of the Ashanti Kings, the largest and most powerful of the country’s clans. At this event royal members of the King’s family dressed in their finest silk kente and adrinke cloth, and heavily adorned with gold jewelry, preside over the blessing rituals. Drums play, horns sound, and hundreds of Ashanti chieftains arrive to show respect to the King, whose exalted entry bears witness to his power.
Kathleen arranges meetings with master artisans like the Boakye family, whose distinguished adinkra cloth are favored textiles for high-ranking funerals and other ceremonial occasions.

In Ghana renowned bead artisan Cedi Dajaba shows us the multi-step process of making glass beads from pulverizing, coloring, firing, washing, and sanding glass beads until they glisten. Kati Torda, renowned beading expert, historian and author talks about the importance of beads in a woman’s life from birth to death. These presentations are private, only for members of Far Fung Places.

This is a land journey, traveling by coach on roads that are not always in the best conditions; accommodations range from three to four star by international standards. A certain amount of physical stamina is required for the trip. Clients must be able to walk up to a half mile and keep up with the pace of the trip.

This will be Kathleen’s seventh trip to Africa in four years including the pandemic, and she is experienced in how to minimize the chances of anyone getting sick, whether from covid or just a travelers ailment.

You will be asked to follow Kathleen’s guidelines for hygiene and health safety. Travelers will be vetted before being accepted on the trip.

Breakfast and dinners will be served in the hotels. Lunches will be in local restaurants or picnics along the way. Bathroom stops will be made every few hours, but sometimes we will need to use the ‘great outdoors’.

In January the harmattan, a wind from the Sahara Desert, can bring small amounts of sand to West Africa creating hazy conditions and be cause allergic reactions due to dust and pollen. The weather in West Africa can range from the high 80’s to the 90s with high humidity along the coast.

Join Kathleen, Noah and her team in West Africa for a comprehensive Journey to the World of the Spirits with TWO incredible festivals!

Please inquire about our day-to-day itinerary for more details.

Land/Air Cost