A motorbike weekend with the Dustbusters is definitely one of the highlights during my three years in East Africa!! Danish Per, the founder and leader of the motorbike safari company in Arusha in Tanzania, gave Marianne, her sister-in-law, and myself two hours of training on Thursday, the day before we set out in the bush . And since none of us had ever tried motorcycling before, it was absolutely worth the money! We did not impress very much the first 30 minutes; there was bumping and jerking and stalling of the engine not only once...
But on Friday, we were ready for the real tracks! At 7 in the morning we were picked up at Scripture Mission and brought by the support vehicle an hour´s drive away, north of Arusha, to a trail at the side of Mt Meru. Helmet, googles, gloves and knee protectors were put on, and then we were ready to go!
Per was in front with his motorbike, stopping now and then to tell us how to drive to cross the challenging parts of the trail. The four unexperienced of us followed, each on a Honda XLR 250 trail bike, and the support vehicle was at the back to help if we had some problems of some kind... Don´t ask what happened here .. 
Lunch was great, and it was nice to stretch our legs and relax a little before moving on. 
Hmmrf, don´t know exactly what happened here either... And I had been so happy that my clothes had dried up during the lunch break...
Despite that I kept entertaining the rest of the group with my unfortunate pothole acrobatics, I had great fun the whole day!
Luckily we had several breaks, and Per´s wife had prepared very good food for us!
Beautiful scenery, partly very good roads, partly mud or rocks - plenty enough of challenges for me! But I am pretty proud that I rode about 95 km all by myself the first day!! And in the late afternoon it was good to get to the camp and relax in a comfortable camping chair with a cold drink and some snacks as the tents were being put up and dinner prepared for us! 
On Saturday I was sore, I say no more... The support vehicle turned out to be our salvation, as one fell and got badly hurt, another one was sick and had to give in after a while, and myself I got tired and lost concentration after some time, and then I became scared of every little bump. 
My motorbike was put on the trailer, and I was offered to ride on Per´s back, which was great fun! He had completely control, and then I got the speed I did not dare to have when driving by myself! Full speed into flocks of zebras and wilderbeasts, making them dustbusters as well - an extraordinary game experience!
After a while I wanted to ride my own motorbike again, but when I got tired the second time I got to sit on Per´s back the rest of the trip, which was a lot more relaxing. The few sandy parts I tried had been both fun and challenging, and since I was happy about all I had done myself it did not feal like a loss at all to make use of the back-up it was to sit at Per´s back. That was just an extra bonus! I was just happy to be out motorbiking without having to defeat the sandy trails myself! Dustbusters (www.dustbusters-tz.com) is hereby recommended!!
...even though you might be sore and hate stairs for some days afterwards...
