From city to wilderness — embracing the interconnectedness of life in Africa's vast landscape

The word “spirit” comes from the Latin “spiritus”, meaning breath. It is in African wilderness that I feel most inspired. It is where I can breathe most deeply, where I feel most myself. 

I grew up as a privileged urban South African, with a comprehensive Western education and the comforts and conveniences of a capitalistic society. Yet for many years I sensed a simmering disconnection and disorientation. I sometimes wondered: Where do I belong? 

I once camped alone in the southern Kalahari, on the edge of a seasonal lake that fills with water during the summer rains.

At first, I felt a tinge of fear, knowing I was the only human in an immense landscape. Back home in Cape Town, I was part of an extensive human community. But in the Kalahari, and on subsequent journeys into the wilderness, I discovered a very different kind of community. 

Gemsbok, springbok and zebras wandered past my campsite, seeking shade under camel thorn trees. A ground squirrel befriended me in return for food scraps, and a yellow-billed hornbill sat on my chair, squawking away. Lions came to investigate at night and a leopard emerged early one morning at the edge of the thickets, scanning his territory. 

In a few days, I slipped back into Nature’s rhythm.

I wore nothing but shorts and a hat, grew a beard and walked barefoot on timeless Kalahari sands. My bed was a camping mattress on top of my 4x4. I cooked food on a small campfire. 

I had books to read, but soon got bored with them. Staring at a book thirty centimetres from my face seemed a misuse of my sense of sight when the boundless Kalahari was all around me, and Sirius and Canopus blazed above me at night. My eyes recalibrated to the far horizons, the movement of distant animals and the turning of stars. 

I stopped looking at my wristwatch — I took it off. I forgot what day of the week it was, and I didn’t care. There seemed to be no past and no future. The days merged into each other and time seemed to slow down. There was so much space and freedom in the Kalahari, and this seemed to create space and freedom inside my mind and heart too. 

I became aware of the sun’s position in the sky, the phase of the moon, and the direction of the breeze as it blew gently against the hairs on my legs.

My hearing retuned to all the subtle sounds: the soft warbling of birds, the distant howls of hyenas and the scuttle of a beetle across the sand. I was finally using my ears as Nature intended. 

After a while, I realised I could hear my own breath. In the searing silence of a Kalahari noon, it seemed louder than ever. I became aware for the first time of how my lungs expanded and contracted with no conscious effort. I was amazed that it had taken me so long to appreciate my reliance on Earth’s atmosphere. And I realised, too, that I shared this precious atmosphere with all other creatures. When the lion breathed out, I was breathing in. And when the springbok breathed in, I was breathing out. 

At times I seemed to be merging into my surrounds; I wasn’t sure where I ended and where Nature began. I knew from textbooks and ecology that all of life is intertwined, but in the Kalahari I began to feel it.

I wasn’t only Scott Ramsay, the photographer. I was also a human animal, an Earthling, in relationship with all of life. This awareness came effortlessly, without thought or intention. It just happened to me because I was there, in the Kalahari. I felt incredibly small in the vast wilderness, but I also had an unbreakable sense of belonging. I had come home to Nature – and myself.

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Sunlight on Water - Chobe River - Botswana. (Photograph: Scott Ramsay/ Spirit of Africa)

Lowland gorilla - Nouabale Ndoki - Republic of Congo. (Photograph: Scott Ramsay/ Spirit of Africa)

Wilderness Trail - Kruger - South Africa. (Photograph: Scott Ramsay/ Spirit of Africa)

Wolfberg Arch - Cedeberg - South Africa. (Photograph: Scott Ramsay/ Spirit of Africa)

Zambezi River - Zambia. (Photograph: Scott Ramsay/ Spirit of Africa)

Imfolozi WIlderness Area - South Africa. (Photograph: Scott Ramsay/ Spirit of Africa)

Zambezi Valley - Zambia. (Photograph: Scott Ramsay/ Spirit of Africa)

The Zambezi Valley in Zambia. (Photo: Scott Ramsay / Spirit of Africa)

Baobab and Martial Eagle - Selous - Tanzania. (Photograph: Scott Ramsay/ Spirit of Africa)

Chimpanzees - Mahale Mountains - Tanzania. (Photograph: Scott Ramsay/ Spirit of Africa)

Dead elephant - Hwange - Zimbabwe. (Photograph: Scott Ramsay/ Spirit of Africa)

Maasai Mara - Kenya. (Photograph: Scott Ramsay/ Spirit of Africa)

Principe Island - Sao Tome and Principe. (Photograph: Scott Ramsay/ Spirit of Africa)

Samburu Women - Kenya. (Photograph: Scott Ramsay/ Spirit of Africa)

Leopard - Aberdares - Kenya. (Photograph: Scott Ramsay/ Spirit of Africa)

Odzala - Republic of Congo. (Photograph: Scott Ramsay/ Spirit of Africa)

Pangolin rescued from poachers - Zambia. (Photograph: Scott Ramsay/ Spirit of Africa)

Chacma baboons - Lower Zambezi NP - Zambia. (Photograph: Scott Ramsay/ Spirit of Africa)

Leopard - Lower Zambezi NP - Zambia. (Photograph: Scott Ramsay/ Spirit of Africa)

A diver with bottlenose dolphins in Quriimbas, Mozambique. (Photo: Scott Ramsay / Spirit of Africa)

Nyungwe Forest - Rwanda. (Photograph: Scott Ramsay/ Spirit of Africa)

Mountain gorillas - Virunga - DRC. (Photograph: Scott Ramsay/ Spirit of Africa)

Mountain gorilla hand - Virunga - DRC. (Photograph: Scott Ramsay/ Spirit of Africa)

Namib sand gecko - Namibia. (Photograph: Scott Ramsay/ Spirit of Africa)

Bee hive - Gorongosa National Park - Mozambique. (Photograph: Scott Ramsay/ Spirit of Africa)

LIon - Busanga Plains - Kafue - Zambia. (Photograph: Scott Ramsay/ Spirit of Africa)

An image from the book, Spirit of Africa. (Photograph: Scott Ramsay/ Spirit of Africa)

Itombwe Massif - DRC. (Photograph: Scott Ramsay/ Spirit of Africa)

Bangweulu Swamps - Zambia. (Photograph: Scott Ramsay/ Spirit of Africa)

Desert-adapted elephants - Namibia. (Photograph: Scott Ramsay/ Spirit of Africa)

Elephant and humans - Mana Pools - Zimbabwe. (Photograph: Scott Ramsay/ Spirit of Africa)