Cooking in the Casbah on Moroccan Culinary Trip

Travelers have an opportunity to learn the art of Moroccan cuisine from top chefs of restaurants in Marrakech and Fez on a trip to Morocco Oct. 16 to 28. Guests will also learn the secrets of Moroccan home cooking from Berber chefs in private kitchens.

With a Moroccan guide who is a successful farmer, guests explore the agriculture of the country, visiting spice, olive and apricot farms.

Guests arrive in Fez during the annual Festival of Culinary Arts. There are tastings, cooking demonstrations, seminars on local herbs and spices, and presentations of native folklore. In Fez’s ancient bazaar, where stalls overflow with jewelry, precious beads, carpets, fabric, pottery, antiques and spices, there is a chance to buy Moroccan kitchenware, including couscous makers.

Participants journey to Marrakech to visit the market square, with acrobats, jugglers, fortunetellers, snake charmers, basket weavers and stalls full of merchandise.

Crossing the Atlas Mountains to the deep south, guests will see tribal people living much as they did in ancient days. Here parking lots are full of donkeys, not cars, with one side for female donkeys and the other for male. This is saffron-growing country, and guests can buy saffron at bargain prices.

Cost: $3,981 includes round-trip air fare from New York to Morocco, stays at deluxe hotels including the Hotel Palais Jamai, breakfast daily, many dinners and lunches, sightseeing, guides and cooking demonstrations. Tour is limited to 20.

Contact: Specialty World Travel of Cambridge, Mass.; telephone (617) 476-1142, Internet https:// www.specialtyworldtravel.com.

Canada: Kayaking

Orca whales are the main attraction during Sea Kayak Adventures’ six-day paddling trip through the wilds of British Columbia’s Johnstone Strait. By kayak and on foot, guests explore the picturesque islands and glacier-carved waterways of the strait, a traditional gathering place for orcas. Kayakers camp on secluded beaches where they may be able to spot whales from their tents.

Groups of 10 travelers can take these tours weekly through September. No previous kayaking or camping experience is necessary. SKA provides paddling gear and camping supplies. Participants can enjoy naturalist-led hikes and fish for salmon from a kayak while the guides set up camp and prepare daily meals.

Additional activities include a visit to an ancient Indian village to view totem poles and remains of a traditional long house.

Cost: $995 per person. Trips depart from Port McNeill on Vancouver Island.

Contact: Sea Kayak Adventures; tel. (800) 616-1943, Internet https:// www.seakayakadventures.com.

Mexico: Oaxaca

Celebrate Mexico’s “Day of the Dead” in Oaxaca, where the largely Indian population follows the age-old customs of creating altars and decorating family graves.

This colonial city in southern Mexico is famous for its 16th century churches, pre-Columbian ruins and Mexico’s best folk art. Baja California Tours’ fully guided tour departs from San Diego on Oct. 28.

Cost: $1,049 per person, double occupancy, including air fare, hotel, tours and 10 meals.

It is also possible to join the tour in Mexico City for $749 per person, double occupancy.

Contact: Baja California Tours, tel. (619) 454-7166 or (800) 336- 5454.

Mexico: Fishing

Hotel Buena Vista Beach Resort, Baja California Sur, will be the venue for an on-the-water class designed for beginning to advanced anglers Sept. 5 to 8.

Ronnie Kovach, lecturer, teacher and host of the radio and television show “Fishing Expeditions,” will lead the program. All fishing gear will be provided by Eagle Claw and Penn fishing tackle.

Instructors will work closely with participants in both formal and on-deck seminars, then in one-on-one sessions to refine skills and learn new techniques.

To achieve maximum instruction and fishing enjoyment, enrollment is limited to 18 anglers.

Cost: $840 per person, double occupancy, including three nights’ accommodations, round-trip air fare (L.A. to Los Cabos), all meals, two days of fishing aboard a 28-foot cruiser, welcome cocktails, taxes and gratuities, fishing school tuition and use of fishing tackle.

Contact: Adventure Outfitters, 2137 Bellflower Blvd., Long Beach, CA 90815; tel. (800) 430-2544.

Texas: History

Learn about the Buffalo War, the last major Indian campaign by the U.S. Army on the southern Great Plains Indians, on a tour of the Texas Panhandle that runs Sept. 18 to 24. The tour will be led by historian-guide T. Lindsay Baker and will start in Oklahoma City, Okla. Among the highlights will be Ft. Sill Military Reservation, the 1868 Battle of the Washita, the site of the Buffalo Wallow Fight, the Adobe Walls Battlefield and the Panhandle-Plains Historical Museum in Canyon, Texas. The tour group will have the opportunity to hike into Palo Duro Canyon in the footsteps of Ronald “Bad Hand” Mackenzie’s 1875 march.

Cost: $1,195 per person, double occupancy, including six nights’ hotel accommodations, transportation via deluxe motor coach and 12 meals.

Contact: HistoryAmerica Tours, P.O. Box 797687, Dallas, TX 75379; tel. (800) 628-8542.

Italy: Sicily

A 16-day tour leaves Jan. 9 to the mild Mediterranean and Sicily, a crossroads of Greek, Roman, Byzantine, Arab, Norman and Spanish interaction. John Barker, a professor of classic and medieval history from the University of Wisconsin, Madison, will lead this tour.

The itinerary starts in Sicily’s capital, Palermo, and continues on to Cefalu, with its Norman cathedral and mosaics, then on to the major Greek sites of Segesta, Selinunte, Agrigento and Siracusa. Also visited are Catania, Taormina, Messina and the Roman imperial villa at Casale near Piazza Armerina. After crossing the Strait of Messina, participants will explore the Doric Greek temples of Paestum, the excavated Roman cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum, and the well-preserved Roman villa of Oplontis. They also will travel through Sorrento and Naples and then to Rome.

Cost: $2,980 per person, double occupancy, including air fare from Los Angeles, ground transportation by private deluxe coach, first-class hotels, daily breakfast, nine dinners and all sightseeing fees.

Contact: University Educational Travel; tel. (800) 525-0525, Internet https://www.uet.com.

Italy: Art

Paint and sketch your way through Umbria, Tuscany and Venice, on an art trip that will be led by artist John Budicin of the California Art Club. The tour runs Sept. 2 to 13. Participants will stay in a centuries-old palazzo and a family-run hotel in the historic center of Siena. They will also enjoy a farmhouse lunch with regional wines in the hill town of Stroncone. There will be plenty of time for painting and sightseeing.

Cost: $2,995 per person, double occupancy, including hotels, eight meals, daily field trips, art instruction and demonstrations, and airport transfers.

Contact: Personalized Travel, 5455 Sylmar Ave., Suite 902, Sherman Oaks, CA 91401; tel. (818) 994-2402.

Pacific Northwest: Cruise

Friendly Excursions and S.T.E.P. Tours are co-sponsoring a nine-day motor coach and cruise tour of the Olympic Peninsula, San Juan Islands and Seattle from Aug. 16 to 24. The “Pacific Northwest Adventure” tour includes a two-day wildlife-search cruise around the San Juan Islands off the coast of Washington. An overnight is planned in the resort town of Friday Harbor.

Also scheduled are a Victorian architecture tour of Port Townsend, a traditional Northwest Coast Indian baked salmon dinner, a visit to the port town of La Conner and two days circling the Olympic Peninsula.

Cost: $1,799 per person, double occupancy, including round-trip air fare from Los Angeles, hotels, 14 meals, cruise, admissions and porterage.

Contact: Friendly Excursions; tel. (800) 775-5018 or (818) 353- 7726.

The Times is not responsible for changes in prices, dates or itineraries. These should be confirmed with cruise lines, travel agents or tour operators.