I'd thought of coach or award flights, but that does not seem appealing.

9,000 miles is a long distance to fly and takes lots of time, even to save about $1,800 ($3,500 less the $1,700 cost of the coach ticket, according to Orbitz; it's about 24 hours of flying). 150k miles (AA North America - Africa) and a day or so of flying is not a very good use of miles, IMO.

If I was in the neighborhood of one of the cheap origins on business or otherwise, ticketing ex-MRU or some such might be more attractive.

At least $8,300 for a RTW ticket is cheaper than this: http://www.nationalgeographicexpeditions.com/486.html