"Dude, live it up. You guys are about to do more traveling in the next few weeks than most people do in their entire lives."

That's what Peter had to say yesterday over a cold Castle (pronounced Cas-tell by Wabongo) within one of the many Mzungu lily pad enclaves in Arusha. Hunter and I are men on the move, though not on the move in the same directions. We got down from Mount Kilimanjaro two days ago. I leave this afternoon for Ethiopia for three weeks; he's still got a little more time to decompress with his family, before Anne and Hank (that's right, they've finally broken me of my Southern affliction, addressing all wazee as "Mr." and "Mrs.", much like a six-month old puppy still chews on couch ends) head back to the States. That's when he and his sister Sarah will set off to do their thing in Rwanda and Uganda. Me? I'll still be in Ethiopia, a.k.a. Zion, a.k.a. the New Jerusalem, a.k.a. the place I've been wanting to go for muchos, muchos años, since long before writing my college history thesis on Jerusalem's role in reggae and Rastafari.

(hint: the reason those things are even remotely related has to do with a town called Axum, the epicenter of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, located in the north of the country near the Eritrean border. It is there that all Ethiopians and Rastafarians alike claim that the lost Ark of the Covenant resides, hidden within the holy of holies in the St. Mary of Zion Church. It is there that this guy is going to go. It is there that I will not be allowed entry. But at least I can say I came as close to the thing as I possibly could.)

These past few weeks have been crazy for me -- a week long safari with my family, the end of my job, a five-day hike of the tallest free standing mountain in the world. Oh, how I wish I had just one more day in Arusha, so I could write about them all, give them the attention they really deserve. But as Michael Scott once said, "No time! No time!" This Zion Train's got to keep on movin'. My time in Africa is winding down, fast. Real fast. And I'm sucking out every last drop.

I get back from Ethiopia August 1; I leave the next day for Dar es Salaam, from where I'm trying to catch a train across the interior of Tanzania to Kigoma, a town Che Guevara used to chill in during his days trying to spread the revolution to the Congo (the first line in his memoirs about his time there were, "This is the history of a failure," so I don't think he had very good memories of Kigoma). From there, there's a chance my friend is gonna hook it up for a chance to see some chimps -- she works for the Jane Goodall Institute, and for that week "so do I." A ferry across Lake Victoria to Uganda is in the works. I see Rwanda in the horizon. I see the River Nile. I see awesomeness. And I see the grand finale, Mount Meru.

Mount Meru is going to be the culmination. Hunter and I have been wanting to climb it all year. Every day it stares us right in the face, our hometown mountain, the center of the universe, or so the Buddhists say. When we reach its summit, only three days before we're supposed to leave this continent for good, well my friends, I think you could say that that is how the script is supposed to end.

When I get home, I have decided, I am writing a book. I no longer say the words "maybe," or "thinking about," or "we'll see what happens." That's loser talk; I am not a loser; and I only get to live one time, right? There's no point in not doing what I feel I need to do just because the odds are stacked against me. Ever heard of Kurt Warner? So I am writing a book, about the last two years of my life, mixing in my own personal experiences, anecdotes and theories with a healthy does of historical context.

I don't care if it gets published or not. I do, but I don't. Meaning, if it doesn't, I won't be mad. I'll just publish it myself, the beauty of the 21st century. To treat it as a glorified thank you note to send to all those who touched me along my way would not be a half bad worst case scenario. From England to Germany to Holland, Denmark to Norway to Spain; Switzerland, France, Italy; Hungary and the Czech Republic, to Croatia and Bosnia-Hercegovina, Slovenia and Montenegro, Macedonia and Albania; to Turkey, Singapore, Vietnam and China. But especially to those in Serbia and Tanzania. Those are the two places that really hold special places in my heart, til Kingdom come.

These last two years have changed me in ways that I never could have expected. I am a better person as a result. My eyes are opened wider. And I am going to make the most of what I learned.

You've got to start somewhere on your dream, right? It doesn't just happen to you. You have to grab it. Okay then. My dream is to be a writer of books, books that people read, about travel, about history, about funny things that happen along the way. And that is what I am going to do. Starting in September, when I'm back in Texas, with no money left in my bank account, with no plans on the horizon, but with a whole lot of stories to tell, I am going to get to work.

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p.s. Apparently the Ethiopian government has put the blogspot website on its websita non grata list, so, yeah. Wouldn't be expecting to hear much from me for the rest of the month.