Turning 33

My 33rd birthday celebration was a RADICAL act of self-care.

You see, eleven days before my birthday, my mum suffered a heart attack.

If you’re a doctor, please, this next part is not for you. It’s for us mere mortals 🤣

Anyway, the first thing I learned is that heart attacks are really not dramatic. None of that chest clutching, falling to one side, gasping thing we see in the movies. All she had was some very easy to ignore pain around the left shoulder and chest area, and one episode of throwing up. Imagine that.

So of course, I flew back home on the very next flight available. One of the most inconvenient flights I’ve ever had to do, because the connections were horrible, but I needed to be on the move. Sitting still was not an option.

What made the timing surreal was that on the very same day I received the news, I also received a much anticipated visa to what was going to be my 28th country on my quest to visit 40 countries before the age of 40: Thailand. I was going to spend ten glorious days there for my birthday celebrations.

Alas, life would not have it that way, and I quickly had to pivot.

I came home to Zambia, and then three days before my birthday, my mum was finally discharged from hospital. We had two nights together at home before I had to head back to Nairobi. Of course, my Thailand plans had been shelved by now, but I still really wanted, nay, needed, to be by the ocean when I turned 33.

Lol. This landlocked girl’s obsession with the ocean must be studied.

I knew it would be a glorious one. I absolutely loooove solo trips, and I also have no problem spending my birthday “alone”. I’m always doing some sort of activity anyway. For reference, see my 2021 solo trip to ride horses, and later, spend a weekend alone in Cape Town.

I remembered I had a vague idea of visiting all the major coastal towns in Kenya. Having already done Diani and Lamu in 2025 and, unbeknownst to him, heavily influenced by a friend who went to Malindi for New Year's, I decided to do a five-day trip to Mombasa, Watamu, and Malindi, with Watamu as my base.

And so began my trip.

I flew from Ndola to Lusaka early in the morning to ensure I made my 18:15 flight back to Nairobi, so I could make it in time for my 08:00 AM train the next day to Mombasa.

What was curious on that Lusaka to Nairobi flight, however, is that right after the meal service, a cabin crew member came to check on me and wished me a happy birthday. It was incredibly sweet, and I figured it was just standard procedure for Asante Rewards members.

She offered me champagne, which I declined for obvious reasons, but I did ask for apple juice. She promptly brought it in a tiny glass reserved for business class, with cheesecake on a real plate like the ones they use for business class. Meanwhile, I was seated with my fellow peasants in cattle class 🤣🤣

I realised it wasn’t standard procedure when the captain announced that he would like to ask fellow passengers to join him in wishing “Miss Mutwale, seated in 16A, a happy birthday”.

At that point, I knew it had been orchestrated by someone who knows me and my love for attention 🤣 As at the time of writing, I still don’t know who arranged it, but wow, I felt so incredibly seen. Or is this the done thing, and I’ve just never witnessed it? Tell meeee!

Unfortunately, the train trip the next day fell on my actual birthday, and I have a thing against travelling on big days like Christmas, New Year's, Independence Day, and of course, my birthday. However, that didn’t deter me.

As per uzh, I travelled on the Premium coach on the SGR, because I love it, and this time I really needed to sleep. I was TIIIIRED. Did I mention on my last birthday blog that the seats recline into a bed? Well, they do.

So I settled in immediately, covered my entire body with my chitenge, and slept five out of the six hours of the train ride. In fact, I had to be woken up by the cleaning staff🤣🤣 I arrived refreshed enough to be engaged in my city tour of Mombasa, and interactive with my lovely tour guide on the hour-plus-long drive to Watamu the next day.

I saw Mombasa through the eyes of the ever-efficient Lenin (book him via +254 712 882 088.) He took me around Old Town, then we had a 90-minute tour of Fort Jesus, after which I wondered whether Oman now offers Kenyans visa-free entry at the very least, because the Omani rule over Mombasa, Lamu, and even Zanzibar was such a cultural marker.

We drove farther around the port, even caught a ship leaving for the deep seas, and, of course, ended the tour at the famous Mombasa elephant tusks on Moi Avenue. I learnt they were erected ahead of a visit from Queen Elizabeth’s sister in 1956.

Later, I had an early dinner and settled into my room, which had the most magnificent view overlooking the water. After dinner, I went to my girl, the Indian Ocean, who is fun and warm, not cold and angry like the Atlantic.

I told her I don’t want any of that “Jesus Year” wahala for my 33rd year. Only positive growth and good vibes, please.

In Mombasa, I stayed at Baobab Waves and my goodness, ten out of ten. Their claim to fame is access to what felt like a private beach, and also the fact that all their apartments have ocean views. Every room in my apartment had large sliding doors with a net to keep out the very few mosquitoes.

I slept with the door open, letting the beautiful nighttime ocean breeze blow on me all night. Utter bliss.

The staff were also extremely friendly, and my darling Caía, whom I still suspect arranged the whole KQ pilot shout-out, connived with them to present me with a beautiful bouquet of flowers and a cake upon check-in.

Low key, this is why I’m happy being single. I get allllll my emotional needs met from this girl, who is my greatest love story yet. Any future boyfriend will have to compete with her and my awesome community 🤭. Female friendships are such a top-tier experience, and I hope everyone experiences real ones as I have in Zed, SA and now Kenya. 

I had to go to bed early on my birthday night, though, because I had a drive to my next stop: Watamu.

My hotel in Watamu was the most beachfront property I’ve ever stayed at. It was literally twenty steps to the beach from my door. Imagine that. Heaven.

I could not even take it all in on the first day because I had booked a snorkelling tour that same day, starting at 08:00 AM, and I needed to drive close to two hours from Mombasa. We left at 5 AM.

I was so tired of waking up early and could not wait to have a proper lie-in the next day. But that day was for snorkelling and other wypipo activities.

In hindsight, it’s so clear I was planning this trip in a stress-induced haze, because I really didn’t need to pack in all those activities right then.

About ten minutes into the snorkelling tour, I realised I had made the worst travel mistake and had found myself on literally the worst tourist activity I’ve ever done. I booked this tour only to find it was conducted purely in Italian.

That left me and another French couple not understanding anything that was going on. But I quickly realised this wasn’t an isolated incident.

What struck me most as I learnt more about the place wasn’t even the Italians. It was the choreography.

In Watamu, entire tours, menus, playlists and interactions seem to quietly reorganise themselves around one language, one audience, one fantasy.

To me, it felt oddly infantilising for both parties.

There seems to be an unspoken assumption that Italian adults cannot be expected to adapt. They must be linguistically cradled, and the entire environment should bend to their comfort. I felt, (woke sentence coming up), that it was over accommodation rooted in whiteness.

At the same time, the Beach Boys, tour guides, waiters and receptionists are reduced to happy natives who perform. Their English or Kiswahili is deemed insufficient, and their role is to serve the fantasy, not to co-create the experience.

In the end, everyone gets flattened. Tourists become helpless children, and locals become props.

I really wanted to love Watamu, but this encounter marred things.

Despite that, after the weird tour, I got back to my hotel and headed straight into the water. That’s when I noticed another Black girl. I made a beeline for her, and we gravitated toward each other, deciding to go out so I could shake off the day.

By this time, I was letting everyone know it was my birthday trip, but the staff at my beachfront accommodation took it a notch further. They played every rendition of “Happy Birthday” for about two hours straight 🤣🤣

My new friend Patricia and I played a made-up game called “Is this another birthday song?” They ended with a live birthday performance, my second that day, as the weird tour had also arranged a birthday surprise for me.

This blog may as well end here because everything that followed was intentionally unremarkable and boring.

I slept in.

I went to the beach.

I let my body catch up with itself.

Turning 33 arrived with clarity. With boundaries. With the quiet understanding that rest is not a reward, but a requirement. (Although, to be honest, I have always viewed rest as a requirement and I think I need to actually scale back on how much I rest 🤣🤭)

If my birthday taught me anything, it is that self-care does not always look like indulgence. Sometimes it looks like choosing yourself early, leaving or declining when something no longer feels right, and trusting that joy will meet you again without force.

And so, I left Watamu the only way one really can; slightly confused, mildly amused, and deeply entertained. I also did something I have ALWAYS wanted to do: go straight from the beach to the airport. The drive from Watamu to Malindi Airport took about 20 minutes in a tuk-tuk, which in itself is remarkable, but more so because said tuk-tuk had TWO drivers, both seated in the front, both very clearly driving, I think 😆.

I was dropped just outside the airport gate and had to walk in, my bag dragged by one of the co-drivers, which honestly felt like the perfect ending to this particular chapter.