‘The Rally’ (2019)

A roadtrip from Amsterdam (NL) to Budapest (HUN). Twelve countries in seven days. Mountains, valleys, panic-attacks, forests, fields, landmines and cities.

In early July 2019 -having had my life upturned by a panic disorder a year previous- I stepped into the passenger side of my friend’s Alfa Romeo and together we made our way to Amsterdam to join a convoy of some 100+ cars that would cross Europe alongside us for the next seven days. I spent the following week shuffling seats between our own little convoy of three cars: ‘Haudi Partner’, ‘Haudi Sheriff’ and ‘Alfa Sombrero’. I took thousands of pictures with my trusty Canon 6D mkII, visited multiple countries for the first time and fought off panic attacks the first few days. Luckily after the first and second rallystage they disappeared almost entirely. Hence, I tend to see ‘the rally’ as the last step in my road to recovery regarding that panic disorder.

Replacing the ‘Haudi Sheriff’s snapped fan-belt by the side of a road in Slovenia.

The lovely mountains just before the Panoramastraße.

The lovely wet roads just áfter the Panoramastraße.

Dashing across the Col du Grand Saint-Bernard.

Safe to say; good times were had.

The nine of us:
- Saw some of nature’s finest ‘everything’
- Drove some of Europe’s prettiest roads (e.g. the Stelvio pass, IT)
- Crossed the Stelvio in an Alfa Romeo without any power-braking. As if i wasn’t convinced i was dying enough already
- Drove around, drag-raced and almost got lost on an abandoned Soviet airfield (still riddled with landmines. Yikes)
- Partied in the middle of nowhere on multiple occasions
- Kept stocking up on ungodly amounts of alcohol, even though half of us had to drive or barely drank anyways

There's a crazy story connected to the towns of Osteno-Claino and Rescia, since M, L and myself were without a doubt the only non-locals to have seen those towns in a LONG time. Here goes: We're headed for Lago di Piano, and had to take the exit to Como, but since it's Italy, and all of traffic is absolute madness, we missed the exit and drove right back into Switzerland. M had been driving all day, so he was napping in the back of the car, L was driving, and i was documenting the whole thing. Luckily one of our other cars, the Alfa, had missed the exit aswell so they also drove right back into Switzerland. Apparently the Alfa was told to stop at the border, but didn't, and then had it's mirror kicked in by some bored Italian border-policeman. The navigation was now telling us to follow the absolute jam-packed hell of a highway towards Lugano, and all the way around Lago di Lugano. Google Maps gave me an alternative route, taking us off the highway, up a mountain, and across the border almost immediately. Seemed like a great idea, and our mastermind Audi 80-owner was asleep in the backseat, so we went ahead and did it. Now here's the catch: “..taking us off the highway, UP A MOUNTAIN..”

What followed was almost an hour of steep, and i mean STEEP (we're talking 25+ degrees here) hairpin turns up a mountain, in the middle of nowhere. Not even a quarter of the way up the mountain, M woke up. Either from the sound of the screaming engine, or the smell of deep-frying brakedisks. I remember him asking “where the hell are we?“ and “is this part of the route?“ Some 20 minutes of hilariously terrifying driving later, we reached the border and were greeted by 3 grumpy Italians, whispering to eachother and telling us to stop the car.

Now, in hindsight, i completely understand. We're 3 cowboy-hat-wearing young men, in a car with a Dutch license plate, on a mountainroad even locals would avoid, trying to cross the border (with a can of Rum-Cola ducttaped to the fuel cap, on the outside of the car). So we get out of the car, ID ourselves, and i begin to explain to this Italian policeman, who obviously doesn't give a damn, that we're on a roadtrip through Europe, and made a detour trying to avoid traffic. They tell us to step away from the car, and start digging through our bags. L had a little tupperware cup with washing powder in his backpack, which obviously looked like a cup filled to the brim with cocaine, if you didn't have a sense of smell. Now if you suspect something is Cocaine, you don't go and smell it, obviously. But they did, so we got lucky! After some aggressive Italian being spoken between the three of them, and some semi-shaken glances exchanged between the three of us, they let us get back in the car. But right as M and i sit down, i hear one officer say “Stop! What is this?” as he points at the can ducttaped to the car.

L blatantly lies (although it turns out he didn't actually know it was alcohol) and says: “it’s a can of energy drink, taped to the car at the Col du Grand Saint-Bernard, in an attempt to cool the drink”. The officer raises an eyebrow, probably thought something along the lines of: “Stupid fcking kids nowadays..”* and then motions us to get out of there. So we continue on our ridiculous road through the mountains, until eventually we reach the highest point, and start going downhill. We cruise through tiny towns (such as Osteno-Claino and Rescia), manoeuvre around tight corners on even tighter roads, with the afternoon sun giving us a crazy Hollywood view of everything around us. At one point we spot a girl clearly hitchhiking by the side of the road in the middle of this nowhere-town. We pass her, yell at eachother whether we should pick her up or not, stop the car, reverse back up the road and ask her where she's going. Now we were totally willing to drop her off anywhere more 'hitchhikable' down the road, until M was like: “Uh wait, shit. We don't have space for her. Like, at all”, since the car was packed to the brim with bags, alcohol and gear. So after totally giving her hope, we had to disappoint her and drive off, laughing at our own stupidity.

Of our three cars, we were eventually the first to arrive at that night's campsite. So i guess we had that going for ourselves?

Rendierman Rally (2019) [photography]

Praat erover (2022) [virtual reality]

Hoogmoed (2023) [virtual reality]

Galgenberg (2024) [videography] I seek the world (2025) [photography] Excerpts [photography]

Rendierman

Rally (2019) [photography]

Galgenberg (2024) [videography]
I seek the world (2025) [photography]
Excerpts [photography]