Itchy Boots Crashes In Tanzania
In October 2022 I wrote about how globe-trotting motorcyclist, Itchy Boots – Noraly Schoenmaker – became a YouTube sensation. Since then, she has completed her tours of The Americas and South Africa and in February 2023, began her latest tour in Morocco, taking in West Africa, the southern half of Africa, and Madagascar. And, if that wasn’t enough, Malawi and Tanzania. She then suffered a serious accident last month en route to Dar es Salaam via Kilimanjaro.
Having watched her struggle through almost impossible tracks of deep mud, rocks, makeshift log bridges and even having her motorcycle falling off a canoe and sink into a river, I often wondered if she had a lucky talisman watching over her. Neither is she a rider who takes unnecessary risks – she never rides at night if she can help it, but she does seek out the roads less travelled. This accident occurred on an unpaved mud road in Tanzania, far from civilisation, where her front wheel twisted sideways in a deep rut and she was thrown from the bike, breaking her collar bone and twisting her ankle. As she says herself, she has been through much worse terrain with deeper ruts, but it appears that this apparently harmless dip in the earth had her name on it.
Fortunately, she was rescued by a passing 4×4 truck a couple of hours later and would you believe, the occupants were all doctors! Long story short, she was taken to a local hospital – a five-hour odyssey – where an X-Ray revealed her shattered collar bone, but her ankle was fortunately in one piece. Following her return to Holland, she underwent surgery on her collar bone only to suffer a punctured lung on the operating table caused by a loose bone fragment.
What Next For Itchy Boots?
It’s not an exaggeration to say that this brave young lady has shown us parts of the world that we would otherwise never see. With many African and Asian countries in political turmoil and wars raging in several countries, she has managed to navigate around all of these. Through her YouTube channel, she has brought joy to millions, with an understanding of the world, not to mention the kindness of simple folk, to the forefront of modern media. But this has all been at a cost, as she herself has admitted. She very rarely takes time off, leads a solitary existence and one must assume that her social life has suffered as a result.
We all know that motorcycling is inherently dangerous, but perhaps that’s the attraction, not to mention the freedom it affords. On balance, most motorcyclists agree that the pros far outweigh the cons. But the odds of an accident in this kind of adventure begin to stack up and as Noraly admits, perhaps it’s time to take stock and evaluate her future. For that and many other personal reasons, not to mention her health, she will not be riding again until September 2024 at the very least. Having said that, she did hint that she will be buying a new bike and has already decided on the location of Season 8 of her next adventure!
She may be unstoppable, but my advice to her would be to make the most of this time off and recover her health, because one way or another, this accident was always going to happen sooner or later.
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It was great to read the update about Noraly. Even if the update itself was about an accident.
I used to watch her videos every week but now this year that I have extremely limited internet I’m unable to view her longer content.
Anyway thanks for bringing it to the fore.
Like everyone else, I wish her all the best. I was known to have guts in my younger years, but she far surpasses my humble motorbike attempts hands down.
Way to go!
Thanks for your comment, Clissa
Like you, I was an avid watcher of her adventures and she has a lot of guts, which put my travels in a different light.
She appears to be making a full recovery and is planning ahead for the next adventure…