Who we are

Since 1982 Cross Cultural Adventures has been designing customized experiences for independent travelers, educational institutions and a variety of non-profit as well as business organizations solely to Morocco, Mali, Tunisia, India and Libya: providing the best in what we know best. The programs can be of any length, for any group size, from 1 to 500, and crafted to any interests, from chauffeured luxury to mountain trekking, from archaeology to zoology. Along the way you will uncover insights into cultures and treasures of the land known to but a select few insiders.

 

Dear Fellow Travelers,

Cross Cultural Adventures was born out of my desire to show off the hidden along with the famed treasures of "my" nooks of the world, while encouraging travelers to appreciate the different ways of life and thought of their peoples.

In the early 1960s I was lucky to have spent 4 years in Tunisia, an idyllic realm of color and warmth to my youthful eyes. Eager to return to North Africa as an adult, in the late 1970s I landed in Morocco, for a stint teaching high-school in a Berber area of the Atlas mountains. There, a fascination with the bold, spontaneous designs of carpets woven by the area's Berber tribesmen led me by steps to what turned out to be a lifelong study of Berber ethnology, their origins, lore, beliefs and religions, legends, architecture, crafts, historical achievements, and the social fabric of daily life. I continue to explore the influences they have had on nearly all cultures of the Mediterranean Basin, from the Egyptians onward, and what influenced them in return.

My studies of the Berbers, North Africa's indigenous inhabitants, carried me to all parts of their vast realms: East across Algeria, its proud Kabyl Berbers, and back into Tunisia; South across the Sahara to Timbuktu in Mali, which has been linked to Morocco through trade, scholarship and conquest over centuries; North to witness the Berbers' influences on Andalusia; and on to Libya, where the earliest signs of Berber culture can be found, in millennia-old rock art on the desert and in once flourishing citadels.

Along the way I developed personal relationships with people in all walks of life, from Morocco's Royal Palace to bards in a tiny village of Mali, from tribal sheiks to the Sahara's Tuareg nomads.

Whether your travel style is the deluxe or trekking, whether your interests veer to architecture or music, I can guarantee that, in between my insider's knowledge of all aspects of those lands and my extensive personal contacts there, no-one can offer you a more insightful exploration, custom-crafted to your desires.

Piotr Kostrzewski

 

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