Dumi, our guide, tells us there’s only one giraffe left as we stop along the rutted dirt road inside Kapama Private Game Reserve. Before us, stands the largest terrestrial animal on earth, knock-kneed, covered in russett patches and nonplussed.
“It’s incredible that we’re seeing him; I call him Geoffrey,” Dumi says.
We’re dumbstruck by our good fortune; we ask Dumi why there’s only one giraffe. “Ahh, they left the gate open. The others left,” he replies, with a face as…

