Destination: Morocco : An Oasis in Marrakech : Reminiscent of the film ‘Enchanted April,’ three American women rent a house near the Casbah and experience Morocco from the inside out

Like the starry-eyed ladies in “Enchanted April,” we’ve rented a house for a month in a faraway, exotic land.

It’s not Italy, like the film, but Marrakech, Morocco’s legendary oasis city of desert caravans, ancient palaces and luxuriant gardens--the gateway to the Sahara.

At the moment, we’re savoring the enchantment.

From our courtyard, the sweet scent of orange blossoms drifts into the open windows. Beyond the iron gate, a street peddler chants as he trundles his cart down the alley. The aroma of cinnamon, ginger and beef simmering in a terra-cotta tajine floats in from the kitchen.

All that’s missing from this enchanting morning is our luggage. “Pas de probleme, madame,” they tell us at the airport. No problem. “Peut-etre demain.”

That means “Maybe tomorrow.” On the other hand, it could mean manana. Which could mean trouble.

The missing luggage, however, really does appear the next day, on the evening flight from Casablanca, accompanied by charming, profuse apologies in three languages.

Two days into our stay we’ve already learned some basics: Morocco is a country both tantalizing and maddening, fascinating and irritating, opulent and inconvenient, seductively soothing and impossibly frustrating.

Most tourists pass through Marrakech briefly on tours but my two women friends and I had done that years ago. This time around, in February, 1993, we wanted to try living there.

We’re hardly neophytes: a retired foreign service officer, a retired travel consultant and me, a writer/editor for the Miami Herald--all over 60, all living in Florida and friends for several years. The house in Marrakech belongs to an American acquaintance who is renting it to us for a month as a favor.

Short-term house rentals are somewhat rare here, though one may occasionally turn up a home or apartment through the Moroccan National Tourist Office or various international rental services (see accompanying guidebook). Our three-bedroom house is reasonable by United States standards--$1,350 for the month--and a bargain when divided by three. And it comes with a cook/housekeeper.

The location is perfect--just off Marrakech’s main boulevard, Mohammed V, in the downtown section of Gueliz--the “new” part of the city built by the French during the 44-year protectorate that ended in 1956. We are within walking distance of restaurants, shops, tourist agencies and the French Market.

Our cook--Fatima--is young, olive-skinned, dark-haired and pretty, and arrives in the morning dressed in a hooded, floor-length djellaba.

She asks us to put about $12 a day for food in a bowl on the hall table. She prepares a continental breakfast of rolls, pastries or croissants, with coffee, tea and juice--and a succulent midday dinner. In the evening, when she has gone, we warm up the leftovers and add soup, rice or pasta.

Fatima’s heady concoctions are coaxed from a two-burner tabletop gas stove and a pressure cooker. There’s also a tiny oven-toaster and a pint-size refrigerator.

Our house isn’t modern, but it has a peaceful, private courtyard shaded by lemon and orange trees and shielded from the alley by a stuccoed wall and metal gate. Indoors are three simply furnished bedrooms and a living-dining room with a low, round table and a typically Moroccan cushioned banquette extending along two walls. We have no telephone, no TV, no screens, no air-conditioning and no hot water in the kitchen.

On our first night, we realize that the only artificial light comes from single bulbs in the ceilings, too dim and high to read by. It’s early March and in Marrakech, at the foot of the snow-covered High Atlas mountains, the air is still knife cold. We struggle with a gas heater that finally lights after dozens of matches and endless attempts--then flickers out minutes later. Defeated, we crawl into bed dressed in jogging suits and socks, burrowing under thick woolen blankets.

We’re lured outside next day when we run out of matches to light the stove and heater. We find our way up Mohammed V to the French Market and prowl among its dozens of stalls. Each sells its own specialty: vegetables, meat, groceries, flowers, spices, souvenirs.

It takes a while to sort out the shopping puzzle. Meat comes from the butcher but sausage and cold cuts from the charcuterie . Bread at the boulangerie but sweet rolls and cakes at the patisserie . For light bulbs one makes a pilgrimage across town to the electrical supply store.

On the bright side, a loaf of French bread costs 10 cents; buttery, feather-light chocolate or almond pastries, 30 cents; a bottle of pleasant Moroccan wine, less than $3. Restaurant meals are moderately priced by U.S. standards.

When we begin to get lazy about locking up, Fatima gives us a lecture about Marrakech security. All the windows and doors in the house have heavy metal grilles with numerous locks. Coming home with groceries, we pass through the front gate, front door and grille, back door and grille, kitchen door and grille--10 keys, 10 locks.

But for most visitors to Marrakech the major problem is not thievery but persistent, unshakable, ubiquitous street vendors and would-be guides. Even accompanied by an escort, you can still be hassled, though your guide will chase them off.

Marrakech has no bus sightseeing tours. We were exceptionally lucky to make friends. One led us through the labyrinthine souks , or markets, of the Medina (the Old City). Another took us strolling through the lotus blossoms and bamboo of the Majorelle Gardens, which adjoin designer Yves St. Laurent’s exotic villa (you can peer at its exterior through an iron fence).

Eventually, we learned to put together our own “tours.” Government-certified guides are available at the government tourism office on Mohammed V and at the desks of major hotels. We hired a guide for a half-day for about $10.

One can walk or ride a caleche (horse and buggy) or a petit taxi . ( Grands taxis are for out-of-town trips.) Taxis and caleches are modestly priced, but we learned to negotiate the rate ahead of time. A cab from mid-town Gueliz to the Medina is about $1.20; to the airport about $3.50. We paid about $2.50 for a half-hour ride in a caleche. Don’t even attempt to explore the Medina without a guide.

A word about walking: Marrakech streets were built by an evil genie who scattered every obstacle imaginable across the pavements. Besides cracked and broken concrete, there are uncovered cavities where trees once grew, gaping drain holes with their covers missing, sudden steps up and down, and manhole covers with raised handles and padlocks lying in wait for unwary pedestrians.

We asked Fatima when she was going to cook couscous--how could we leave North Africa without the couscous experience? Friday is couscous day, she advised, and when Friday arrived, she served us enough couscous to feed a Berber tribe, heaping it around a chunk of veal with cabbage, carrots, squash and bowls of tomato and onion sauce.

The food is one of Morocco’s prime enchantments--a wonderful meld of Berber, Arab, southern European and French. One of my favorite Fatima lunches was k’fta, which she provided in abundance. k’fta is a dish of savory meatballs served with tiny round pasta and a spicy sauce.

We rarely went to restaurants, partly because we had our own cook, but also because it’s difficult for women to go out at night without a male escort. Lunching out was a problem because we were in Morocco during Ramadan, the holy month of fasting when practicing Muslims give up eating, drinking and smoking from dawn until sundown. During Ramadan, a sidewalk cafe is no place to linger at midday, with hungry passersby coveting your lunch. (It’s also considered not quite comme il faut to snack in front of someone who’s fasting.)

One of the highlights of our placid social life was an invitation from an American friend to breakfast in the apartment she shares with her husband, a Moroccan. This was not “breakfast” as in 7 a.m. toast and coffee, but “break fast,” which brings an end to the Ramadan day of fasting.

Seated on banquettes in their stylish living room, we gathered around the traditional low table and watched as dish after dish was brought from the kitchen. We waited expectantly for the siren and the cannon boom marking the end of the day’s fasting. Then everyone dipped into steaming bowls of harira, the traditional fast-breaking soup of beans and lamb (there are dozens of variations).

Harira was followed by m’flakbah, a hot, cracked-wheat cereal; bowls of dates, figs and hard-cooked eggs; shebbakia, a honey-coated twist pastry; sliloh, a mixture of brown sugar, flour and spices, and cafe au lait. “Break fast” is only meant to ease the national hunger pangs; a full-blown dinner follows later in the evening.

By the second week, the weather had warmed considerably. We ate our meals outdoors under the fruit trees and climbed the spiral staircase to the roof to hang our laundry.

*

Near the end of Ramadan, we could feel the excitement in the air. The fasting ordeal would soon be over.

On the final night, we waited all evening for the signal. It came just before 10 p.m. when the house shook with the thunder of five cannon salvos. The next morning I awoke to the music of reedy pipes and a man singing outside the gate. With our neighbor, we went for coffee on the roof of the nearby Cafe de Renaissance, making our way through streets suddenly full of crowds and traffic.

In the sidewalk cafes, every table was taken. Families paraded together in new clothes--the men in crisp white djellabas and new pointy-toed babouches, the women in brightly colored djellabas and high heels, little girls in starched skirts and ruffled lace collars, a little boy in a pink dress shirt, pink tie and very large black trousers that would surely last him out the year. The elevator operator at the cafe beamed at us and crowed happily, “Fin de Ramadan!”

Some of our U.S. friends cock their eyebrows at our tales of housekeeping in Morocco. I get the impression that they think, as world travelers go, we’re missing a few marbles.

They have a point. Instead of our house in Marrakech, with all its charms and quirks, we could have had an air-conditioned hotel with a taxi stand outside the door and a concierge at our beck and call.

But that would have been too easy. And twice as expensive. And not half as enchanting.

GUIDEBOOK

A Home in Morocco

Getting there: From LAX fly nonstop to Paris on Air France, United and TWA and connect with various airlines into Marrakech; other airlines offer connections through New York and various European and North African cities, with advance-purchase, coach fares ranging from $850 to $1,700.

Renting a house: House rentals are not as commonly available in North Africa as in European countries, but they can be found occasionally. The following exchange clubs also list occasional rentals:

Vacation Exchange Club, P.O. Box 650, Key West, Fla. 33041; tel. (800) 638-3841.

INTERVAC U.S., P.O. Box 590504, San Francisco 94159; tel. (800) 756-HOME.

Worldwide Home Exchange Club Ltd., 806 Brantford Ave., Silver Spring, Md. 20904; tel. (301) 680-8950.

For more information: Contact the Moroccan National Tourist Office, 20 East 46th St., New York; tel. (212) 557-2520.