Funemployment

As most people who know me know, I was fortunate to be a part of the largest bank failure in U.S. history last fall when the FDIC stepped in and seized Washington Mutual's bank assets and sold them to JPMorgan Chase. Seriously though, I was extremely lucky in a horrible situation and ended up getting a "transition" gig with JPMC. That gig ended on June 30th and I am now officially unemployed for the first time since graduating from college in 1996.

I decided the best thing to do is to take advantage of this (hopefully) once in a lifetime opportunity and do some serious world traveling before coming back to San Francisco to jump back into the working world. So very soon I'll be heading off for what is currently planned to be a 3 month trip in Africa.

There was much thought and discussion about potential destinations (Patagonia, Peru, Costa Rica, Bali, Thailand, a full-on 'round-the-world, etc., etc.), but, in the end, South/East Africa was the choice. This seemed like a great destination to make use of my relatively large amount of time and take the traveling slow and go with the flow. Also, I had some potential partners in crime...

Three former co-workers/friends are going to be traveling with me. Rob Purivis and John Eberly have already been traveling various parts of the world since early February. They both just returned to the U.S. for a few weeks before we all take off for Tanzania to get things rolling. Tim Wortman was "working" for Wamu/Chase thru March and since then has been doing some other travel in Europe and whatnot. We all agreed back in March/April to spend 2-3 months exploring southern Africa beginning with a trek to the summit of 19,340 foot Mt. Kilimanjaro (pictured above), the tallest peak in Africa and one of the "seven summits."

Below is a little map for those not familiar with the geography of Africa. It shows a good overview of the part of the world where we're heading. Only the first month or so of my trip is solidly planned at this point, but this is the itinerary as it stands right now.

• July 21 - Flight from San Francisco to Amsterdam, Netherlands
• July 22 - Rob and I will be breaking up the long trip by spending the day/night relaxing in one of the world's most civilized places before we head off for the African adventure
• July 23 - Wortman meets us on our flight from Schiphol (Amsterdam) to Kilimanjaro International Airport in Northern Tanzania

• July 24 - We meet up with John who is flying into Nairobi, Kenya and spend a few days in Moshi, Tanzania waiting to meet up with our guide and group for the Kilimanjaro climb.
• July 25- August 1 - Kilamanjaro Trek - we'll take 4.5 days to go up from ~6000' to 19,340' and 1.5 days back down. We're taking one of the non-traditional routes up (the Rongai Route coming from the north and camping in caves along the way) and then we'll descend via the main Marangu or "coca-cola" route (so called because they sell soft drinks at the huts at the camps along the route).
• August 2-8 - We'll meet our Safari guide/group in Arusha, Tananzia (hopefully avoiding starting cat fights in the local dance halls - ask Ken Brophy for full story) and then head out for a week long camping safari in the National Parks of Northern Tanzania (Serengeti, Ngorongoro Crater, Lake Manyara)
• August 9 - Flight from Kili International to the Zanzibar Archipelago, 2 tropical islands (the other island is called Pemba) off of the cost of Tanzania for a week or so of relaxing after 2 weeks of rough trekking and camping. Zanzibar is supposed to have some of the best SCUBA diving in the world so we'll check that out between naps on the beaches.
• August 16ish - We'll ferry from Zanzibar into Dar Es Salaam, the big city in Tanzania to ship some unneeded trekking gear back to the U.S. and deal with visas for our next destinations, Malawi and Mozambique.
• a few days later - we'll then head off via buses (and trains when its possible, which is rarely) across southern Tanzania and into Malawi and Mozambique for some ground-level exploring, including visiting various beaches (Lake Malawai and the coast of Mozambique are rumored to be beautiful and are definitely off the beaten track)
• late September - the current plan is to roll into Maputo, the capital of Mozambique in the southern part of the country and then into nearby South Africa around this time.
• The list of potential things to check out in the final month of the trip is a million miles long so we'll see how it all plays out, but another safari in either the Okavango Delta in Botswana or a canoe safari on the Zambezi River will likely make the final list. A visit to Victoria Falls (the Zambian side given Zimbabwe's current issues) should make the list as well, including the potential for whitewater rafting, bungee jumping and other such things that go on there.
• Also, around the late September/early October timeframe, I will be very excited to reunite with my girlfriend, Tully. I'll split from the boys and, depending on how much time Tully can get off of work (at least 2 weeks...silly jobs...), she'll join me for some combination of the Botswana/Zambia adventures. She and I will definitely hit Cape Town and the surrounding coastal and wine country regions at some point and we may squeeze in some other exploring of South Africa before winding things up.
• October 20 - my flight from Johannesburg back to SF.

Well, that's the deal...I'll keep you posted as much as I can along the way!

-T