New Year at the Ibis

After the mountains, I found myself in Meknes once more, with New Year fast approaching. It was a scenic bus ride of 5 hours or so, on a knackered bus, and I appreciated the nod towards legality, as all the passengers standing in the aisle, were made to crouch down and hide, as we passed the police checkpoint.
I sat in a cafe with Robin discussing the impending dawn of 2004, and we were witness to some guy stealing a bottle of whisky from some Spanish people sitting near us. They had brought it especially, and were displeased to say the least. In fact , they chased him down the street to no avail.
We decided the New Year celebration should start with camel meat, so off we went to the old medina, where you buy it from one place, and then take it round the corner to cook it. It was not bad at all, once made into little dumplings with herbs and onions.
After the camel, and customary mint tea, we dicovered it was too late to buy any alcohol from the shops (about 10pm). This left us with the choice of going to bed early, or going to one of the posh western hotels.
The posh western hotels at the top end of the market, were determined to charge an exhorbitant amount for entry, so we were left with an outlet of that great French chain, the Ibis.
We saw the New Year in, in style at the Ibis Meknes hotel bar, with a bottle of delicious, locally produced red wine. There were only 6 of us in the bar, but there was a rather kicking time in the restaurant next door, with at least 20 people dancing in a frenzy (although I did notice a lot of them were wearing chef hats....)!