In October, 2022, well-known YouTube adventure rider Noraly—the force behind the Itchy Boots channel—did the Baja Rally for the first time. It’s a challenge that those of us who haven’t done it will probably never completely understand through our screens, but this video series does a good job of telling the tale, in all its ups and downs.
Some of the terrain isn’t too bad, but the parts that are serious are rocky, rutted, on inclines, with cactuses that you’ll want to avoid hitting if you have any sense—you get the idea. This video showcases Baja Rally 2022 stages two and three for Noraly, and how they went.
You get a clear view of the roadbook system, too, which may be helpful if you’re unfamiliar with how they work and are considering tackling something like this in the future. Also, at one point, Noraly misses a waypoint and has to ride back to hit it, at which point the transponder beeps to indicate that she’s hit it.
There are quite a few crashes in this video, as well—but over and above that, there’s an amazing sense of camaraderie. Fellow adventure riding YouTuber Charly Sinewan is running this rally as well, and he and a guy called Pancho help Noraly out after she injures her leg pretty badly, then proceeds to crash a few more times, which probably doesn’t help it any.
After she finishes stage three, medics do a partial examination of her leg. She explains that she injured it on the first day, and has been riding on it ever since—but after the falls today, it’s some of the worst pain so far. Somehow, though, she managed to push through and complete the stage, and it does seem likely that she couldn’t have done it without the kind of awesome camaraderie you can only find doing something like this.
It’s a torn muscle, it turns out—and the very last shot of this video is a still showing some pretty terrible bruising. The next video shows how stages five and six of the Baja Rally 2022 went—and did Noraly finish? You probably know the answer already, because quitting is clearly not in her vocabulary, in any of the multiple languages that she knows. That spirit is just one of the reasons why so many people enjoy seeing her adventures as she takes us along for the ride.
