Sof Omar Pilgrimage Festival

Sof Omar Cave, Africa's longest cave system, hosts two annual Islamic pilgrimage periods, roughly fifteen days in May and a shorter one in June, drawing gatherings of about a thousand people to prayers and processions inside its river-carved limestone chambers. Named for a sheikh who took refuge there, the site combines religious pilgrimage with a genuinely underground natural setting.

Sof Omar Cave, in the Bale Zone of Ethiopia's Oromia region roughly 550 kilometers southeast of Addis Ababa, is Africa's longest known cave system, stretching over 15 kilometers with the Weyib River running through its chambers, and it takes its name from a Muslim sheikh remembered for taking refuge inside its passages in the early medieval period.