Gabi Teichert, a history teacher, is unhappy with the way history is portrayed in textbooks and is looking for an alternative, more practical approach to 'uncovering' the past, quite literally digging with the spade and dissecting books with hammers and drills.

Bernhard "Big Mäc" Maurer, an ex-motorcycle freak and bored piano teacher, is voted the "perfect motorcyclist" by the trade magazine Motorrad after quitting his job as a music teacher at a Munich high school. He is promised a bonus of $50,000 if he manages to beat a Japanese team in an adventure rally from the Zugspitze to Kilimanjaro. Maurer agrees and chooses as his second man, the technician, his young neighbor Max. Max, for whom an apprenticeship is at stake, injures himself shortly before the start of the rally and has to sit out. Without Maurer's knowledge, Max's almost identical-looking sister Maxi takes over the role of the boy.