Southern Giraffe and Admirers, Moremi Game Reserve, Botswana, 27/04/16

Giraffa camelopardalis giraffa

This is a truly great string of photos, Maguari: thank you!

How crowded with visitors were the parks in Botswana? Was a situation like this exceptional, or the norm? And are these sorts of vehicles the standard ones that are used by the safari companies, rather than the more-expected Land Rovers, or the less romantic mini-buses?

This was a slightly odd situation - the vehicle here is the other half of our party taking a parallel track! Normally the two vehicles went their own way unless there was a 'big' sighting (i.e. a carnivore..!) in the offing. There are quite a few other vehicles about but the parks certainly weren't busy - only on the main thoroughfares were other vehicles regular and only at a couple of the lion and leopard sightings did more than three vehicles converge (and never more than five at aboslute peak - nothing like this: http://www.zoochat.com/810/cheetah-eating-warthog-maasai-mara-438320/).

This type of vehicle is what most of the organised safari companies were using - though there were a few private vehicles and filming and research teams who were using standard 4x4s. These gave great views (and made the drive back to the airport on normal roads rather bracing!) and a party of 12 over two vehicles that could hold 9 passengers each meant we had plenty of space as well.