Tulia Eco Garden (2025)

17/07/2025

“God created mankind in His own image…”It’s one of those verses I’ve heard so often, it started to feel like background noise.

Beautiful, yes — but distant.
Vague.
An image of God?
What does that even mean?

Because when I look in the mirror, I see all sorts of things —overgrown hair I need to trim, under-eye circles formed by budgets and bookings,a mind sometimes riddled with doubt, a soul sometimes heavy with waiting.

And yet — in His image?

Then, one afternoon, a woman — wise, soft-spoken, the kind of person who folds her words before handing them to you —told me something that stopped me mid-thought.

She said, “A glove is made in the image of a hand.”

Simple. Precise.
And suddenly, Genesis had a metaphor.

A glove can be beautiful — leather stitched with care, suede that smells like memory, knit that stretches like grace.

But a glove without a hand?

It has five fingers, yes.
But until a hand slips into it — it’s empty.

It has no utility,
no purpose,
no meaning.

It’s just… potential.
It’s just… folded silence.
No grasp. No grip. No gesture.

Its shape, just a promise.

But only when the hand slips in — does that promise come alive.

Only then can the glove carry, build, comfort, warm, wave, bless, protect.
Only then is it more than potential.

And that’s when it hit me:

Tulia is a glove.

On certain days, when no guests are checked in,
I walk the garden path and see it all —
The wild bougainvillea dancing like fire and flame.
The infinity pool, still as glass, cradling the sky.
The villas standing proud — quiet queens on green thrones.
The kitchen breathing slowly, waiting for joy to return in the form of an order.

It’s all beautiful.
Every inch. Every detail. Every echo of Eden.

But something tugs at me.

Not loudly. Not rudely.
Just… insistently.

A feeling that this place, in all its glory, is still waiting for something.

You.

Your laughter in the hallway.
Your footprints pressed softly into the soil.
Your shoulders relaxing into rest like they’ve been carrying the weight of a continent.
Your silence at sunrise

You, napping.
You, tasting.
You, living.

Without you, Tulia is well-crafted, yes. Designed with soul. But dormant.

It’s a glove laid gently on a table.
Its form is intact — but its purpose?
That comes from your presence.

Your pulse.
Your need for rest.
Your arrival.

We weren’t made to be admired from afar.
We were made to serve, to hold space, to hold you.

Tulia Eco Garden. Made in your image.
And waiting to be filled.

Come be the hand.
Come give us meaning.
Come give us purpose.

0708 327334 or ☎️+254740502075
📧 [email protected]

16/07/2025

Don’t worry, we will forgive that it has taken you this long to visit Tulia Eco Garden. Make things right.😉😂Call or WhatsApp us 0708 327334 or ☎️+254740502075 and Book a Stay.

16/07/2025

One of my colleagues at Tulia recently bought a motorbike.
And let me tell you — I don’t know who was more excited, him or me.

You know that feeling?
That unexplainable joy when someone around you wins?
When their win feels like yours?
That’s how it started.

And then I said to myself,
"This is it. This is my time. I'm finally going to learn how to ride a motorbike."

Let me tell you Maina...
This thing?
It’s not a joke.

It’s not that it’s gruesome.
It’s not even that it’s hard.

But it requires... precision.
If you were to compare it to slavery (and I say this with all the exaggeration of someone who didn’t eat lunch that day),
it’s like picking cotton — small movements, lots of discipline — versus breaking your back harvesting sugarcane.

The hardest part?
Getting it to start.

Balancing the accelerator and the clutch
is like trying to pat your head and rub your stomach at the same time —only the ground is watching, and it’s very close.

After more failed starts than I care to admit,
I finally got it.

The bike moved.

I was doing circles in the Tulia parking lot like I was auditioning for MotoGP.

The feeling?
Euphoric.

It was like the first time I rode a bicycle without training wheels.
That deep-rooted, I-can-do-this type of excitement that feels like a homecoming to your own body.

I didn’t eat lunch that day.
I barely worked.
I was in the parking lot
spinning.
Circling.
Conquering.

Four days later,
the feeling still lingers.
It’s parked somewhere in my chest, revving softly whenever I see my colleague’s bike keys.

This morning he told me,
"Ehe. You’ll start fueling this thing soon. I think you ride it more than I do."

He’s not wrong.

It reminded me of a guest we took snorkeling in Wasini —his first time.
He was hesitant.
You could see it in the way he gripped the side of the boat.
Mask half on. Breathing sharp.
You’d think he was preparing for deep-sea treasure hunting.

But we guided him in, slow.
Float first. Breathe.
Then look down.

And when he finally dipped his face in, he froze — in the best way.

He came back up smiling like someone who had just seen Narnia.
"It’s a whole other world down there," he said.
“The colors. The fish. The stillness.”

He couldn’t stop talking about it.
He carried that joy through lunch, through dinner,
all the way into checkout the next morning.

And something about it stuck with me —
this beautiful truth:

There’s a kind of happiness you earn
by doing something your body has never done before.

It’s not just the adrenaline.
It’s the breakthrough.
The moment the fear breaks… and becomes joy.

It’s standing up — or squatting — on a surfboard
for the first time.

It’s the first 10 metres you swim without grabbing the edge of the pool.
It’s making chapatti with our chef
and flipping it just right without it tearing.
It’s germinating seeds with our farm manager
and watching life literally sprout from your fingertips.

It’s small.
It’s big.
It’s unforgettable.

And that’s the thing about Tulia.

Yes, it’s about rest.
Yes, it’s about peace.
But it’s also about that spark — that moment your heart says,
"Wait… I just did that."

That joy doesn’t disappear when you leave.
It stays.
It lives in your muscles.
It hums in your memory like a motorbike engine calling your name from across the garden.

So if it’s been a while since you learned something new,
since you let yourself be a beginner,
since you felt that wild, I-can’t-believe-I-did-it type of joy.

Visit Diani. Visit Tulia.

Try the thing.
Struggle a bit.
Laugh a lot.

Then leave with a story you’ll still be smiling about next week.

And me?
I’ve got to go.
I can hear my colleague’s bike idling outside.
Time for my daily joy ride.

Interested in reigniting the spark⚡️of learning?Reach out 0708 327334 or ☎️+254740502075

15/07/2025

One of the first groups of foreign guests we hosted at Tulia were
German.

They’d been referred by a neighbor —
a sweet old shosh here in our little village of Mabokoni who speaks more broken English than German, by the way.

Naturally, we wanted everything to be perfect.
You know how it is.
Germans — precision, structure, engineering.
Even their language sounds like it knows how to hold a screwdriver.

So we polished everything.
Double-checked the rooms.
Timed the water pressure.
Plated the food with intention.

And for a while… it worked.
Everything was smooth.

Until Kenya Power decided to make their presence felt.

The lights went out.
And when I say “out,” I mean out.
Tulia is surrounded by tropical forest.
The nearest other hotel is at least 5–10km away.
When the lights go, it’s not Nairobi-dark.
It’s deep dark. Jungle dark.

I had just taken off my work clothes —
you know that sacred moment when you mentally clock out?

Then the phone rang.

It was one of the guards on night shift:
"The guests are asking for you."

My heart dropped.
I stared at the phone like maybe if I didn't respond, reality would buffer.
I wished I was already asleep, just so I could pretend I never saw the call.

But… duty calls.

I got dressed and walked across the, quiet compound.
I prepared all manner of apologies on the way:
“We sincerely regret the inconvenience…”
“So sorry for the power failure…”
“We’ve contacted Kenya Power…”

I braced for impact.

I found them huddled together on the day bed outside their villa.
Stars lit their faces, soft murmurs in the stillness.

And then — the poshest of the group turned to me.
You know the one.
Every group has that one guest who looks like they could personally audit your soul.

I took a breath, about to launch into my apology script…

She raised a hand gently and smiled.

"Don’t worry. We get power cuts in our village too. We’re from a small German town.
We just wanted to ask about the food in the fridge. We don’t want it to spoil."

Then she looked up and added:

"The stars are so beautiful and bright here. That’s why we’re out —just stargazing."

That moment stopped me cold.

All my worry.
All the fear of failing some imagined international hospitality standard.
All the pressure to perform perfection…

It melted.

And in its place?
Stillness.
Sky.
Grace.

And that — I think — is Tulia.

No, we’re not perfect.
Sometimes it feels far.
Sometimes the food takes longer than expected.
Sometimes the power goes out and the night hums louder than usual.

But what I can promise you
is that in every crack of imperfection, there’s beauty.

There’s a star you wouldn’t have seen if the lights stayed on.
There’s a moment of silence your soul wouldn’t have caught if things went exactly to plan.

Tulia is not where everything works.
It’s where life works.
Where the rush slows,
and the world — stripped of noise — becomes something you can feel again.

So if you’re looking for five-star hotel polish,
we might fall short.
But if you’re looking for five-star presence…

If you want to remember what stars look like —
not on a screen, but above your head —
then come.

We’ll leave a day bed waiting for you.

And if the lights go out,
look up.

15/07/2025

I remember longing for the grand opening of Tulia
the way a tailor dreams of the final stitch on a dress
they’ve been working on for months.

We were heading into the Christmas season —
what you'd call the gala of galas in the hospitality world.
And the Directors?
They were keen.
Let’s just say — pressure was measured not in tonnes, but in Whatsapp messages.

If you’ve ever worked in construction,
then you know it’s less like project management
and more like sewing a dress with your eyes half-shut and the fabric fighting you back.

Something always needs fixing.
Something always arrives late.
Someone always disappears at the worst possible time.

Bricks, timber, broken timelines, forgotten fittings —
construction has its own heartbeat.
And it doesn’t always beat in rhythm with your plans.

But somehow — we made it.

The Grand Opening?
It was beautiful.
A breath of fresh air. We had done it.
The dress was finished.
The gala of galas was here.

But then — as quickly as it arrived —it ended.

Just a few hours.
Just one night.
And when the lights dimmed and the music faded,
we looked at each other and asked the question every dreamer asks once the curtain falls:

“Now what?”

Where do we get guests?

And that’s when it hit me.
Building Tulia was like sewing a gown for a gala.
The gown of gowns.
The one you sketch in the margins of notebooks,
describe in daydreams, chase with fabric swatches and frayed measuring tape.

You stitch through the night.
You prick your fingers.
You ruin your posture.
Your back aches.
Your eyes blur.

But you finish.

And for a moment,
you stand tall.
The room is clapping.
The cameras flash.
But the gala?
The gala is just one night.

And here’s the thing they don’t tell you.
After that kind of work,
before you plan the next move,
before you start worrying about guests or bookings or foot traffic.

You need to pause…
You need to bandage your blisters.
You need to stretch your spine.
You need to breathe like someone who survived.

Better yet…
let Tulia do it for you.

Tulia isn’t just a place for guests.

It’s a place for builders.
Makers. Hustlers. Creators.
Anyone who gave their all to make something beautiful only to wake up the next day…
aching.

If you’ve ever built something from scratch —
a business, a book, a brand, a building —
and woken up the next morning still holding the tools, unsure how to stop the momentum...
Tulia knows that feeling.

And it knows what to do with it.

Let Tulia hold you the way you held your project together.
Let it care for you the way you cared for the vision.

Because yes — the gala was worth it.
But so are you.

And now that the dress is done…

Come lie down.

We’ve kept a room just for you.

Feel like you’re in need of some TLC ( Tender Loving & Care) reach out to us 0708 327334 or ☎️ +254740502075

15/07/2025

Since we opened Tulia, one piece of guest feedback has stayed
remarkably consistent:
“The food takes time.”

And we hear you.
We’ve been working to shorten that wait,
streamline our systems, improve prep,
optimize the kitchen flow.

And we’ll continue to do so.
Because your time matters.

But in the same breath,
there’s another consistent piece of feedback we get:
“The food is incredible.”
“This doesn’t taste like hotel food.”
“Every meal feels like it was made just for me.”

And that’s because... it was.

At Refe’s Kitchen — our in-house, farm-to-table restaurant —we don’t serve standard hotel food.

We serve memory food.
Food that feels like home — only elevated.
Food with a pulse.
Food that hasn’t been sitting in a bain-marie since breakfast.
Each dish is made à la carte — from scratch — when you order it.
Not before.
No shortcuts.
No mass reheating.
No “standard sauce base for everything.”

We don’t believe in that.

Instead, what you’re eating may have been harvested minutes ago.
Your sukuma might have been picked when you sat down.
Your herbs — basil, rosemary, thyme — clipped as your waiter
walked to the kitchen.
That coconut curry?
Yes, the coconut was cracked by hand.

We marinate.
We grind.
We stir slowly.
We cook with real fire, not just heat.

Each plate that leaves our kitchen is made by someone who knows
your name, your room number, and sometimes, even your dietary quirks.

It’s not hotel food.
It’s a homemade promise — plated beautifully.

And yes… it takes a little longer.
But like all good things —
a slow-ripened mango, a slow-cooked stew, a perfectly brewed cup of tea —
the best flavor comes when you let time do what it does best: transform.

So while we keep improving our efficiency,
we won’t ever compromise the care.
Because at Tulia, we believe food is part of healing.
And healing doesn’t happen in a hurry.

So come hungry.
Come curious.
Come ready to wait a little longer —
and be fed in more ways than one.

Refe’s Kitchen
From Our Soil to Your Soul

Hungry for a meal that makes you chew slower and smile to yourself? 0708 327334 or ☎️ +254740502075

14/07/2025

*Books That Lied To Me*
Paulo Coelho’s The Alchemist is the book I would say got me into writing.
That, and Ben Okri’s The Famished Road.

These are books I enjoyed so much…
I got a pen and became a writer.
Not.

Truth is, I was like a baby that understands what you’re saying and wants to reply so bad…
but the words just stumble over each other,
leading to an incomprehensible series of noises coming out.

I had entire books,
movie scripts,
fully written out.
Produced.
And a couple even won some awards.

But after all that daydreaming, all I had was
disconnected thoughts disguising themselves as sentences.
They dressed like they knew where they were going.
But deep down? They were just pretty words with no map.
Every chapter felt like it could walk off the page and get hit by a matatu.

Still, I didn’t stop.
Because somewhere deep down, I thought maybe the transformation would happen.
You know — that Saul moment.
A spiritual lightning bolt.

I visit a waterfall, close my eyes, and suddenly I’m the next Chimamanda with a slightly localised Nairobi accent.

But life?
Life doesn’t do plot twists on command.

And Tulia?
Tulia doesn’t work that way either.
Tulia won’t give you a Saul moment.
You won’t swim in the infinity pool and emerge transformed.
You won’t eat one farm-to-table breakfast and suddenly become someone else. Tulia is not theatre.

It’s not Instagram spirituality.
It doesn’t perform for you.
But what I can honestly assure you…
is a fundamental shift from within.

A quiet, subtle transformation in your perspective.
It’s like those early sentences I wrote — the ones that almost worked.
They weren’t captivating.
They weren’t award-winning.
Nothing to write home about.
But they held shape.
They didn’t fall apart mid-sentence.
And in a way… they started to point somewhere.

That’s what Tulia does.
It doesn’t reinvent you.
It reminds you.

That transformation isn’t always loud.
That clarity doesn’t arrive with a marching band.
And that maybe — just maybe — you’re not as far from wholeness as you thought.

You might come tired, jaded, overstimulated, slightly sceptical.
But something in Tulia’s air — or the silence, or the soil, or the ugali served with more care than most relationships — will settle inside you.

And then, days or weeks later, when you’re back in Nairobi or wherever chaos resides,
you’ll realise something is slightly different.

Your anger doesn’t sprint anymore.
Your mind takes longer pauses.
You might even text someone you never thought you’d forgive and say,
“Siku nyingi. Uko aje?”

That’s the Tulia shift.

So no, I didn’t become a writer overnight.
And no, you won’t become a new person in one weekend.

But if you’re lucky,
you’ll start hearing your own voice again.

Paragraph by paragraph.
Thought by thought.
Until finally…
your soul forms a sentence that makes sense.

If you’re interested in the subtle shift you can find at Tulia you can reach out 0708 327334 or ☎️ +254740502075

13/07/2025

Say what you will about village people,
but there’s one thing you can’t fault them for —
efficiency.

If you’ve ever lived in a village,
you know this:
the shortest distance between two points is a straight line —
no matter what lies in between.

They don’t believe in going around.
What for?
In the village, roads are suggestions.

A footpath can go straight through your living room, if that’s where the people need to pass.
Nothing is sacred when it comes to shortcuts.

Homesteads?
Paths slice clean between the kitchen and the chicken coop.

Banana farms?
You’ll see footprints between the stems like breadcrumbs.

Barbed wire fence?
Lift your leg.
Don’t snag your leso.
You’re through.

Freshly planted maize field?
Ah, don’t worry. Just step between the lines like you’re playing
hopscotch.
No one will mind.
They might even offer you tea.

And the etiquette?

Simple.

No need for permission —
but you MUST greet.

You can walk across someone’s graveyard,
past their hanging laundry,
through their ongoing funeral preparations —
but if you throw a casual "Habari ya leo Mama Ben?" as you pass, you’re good.

Fail to greet?
Now you’re a witch.

Because in the village, they understand something deeper than boundary lines:
We’re all just passing through.

I remember visiting my grandmother.
We’d walk through people’s farms like we had shares in them.
You’d pass by a tree, spot a ripe orange,
pluck it, peel it, eat it — all in the same breath.

No one would shout.
No one would chase.
Because it wasn’t stealing.

It was happenstance.
You didn’t come to take.
You were just walking by.
And nature — in her kindness — offered something along the way.

That’s exactly how it is here at Tulia.

When you take a walk through the orchard,
the farm,
the edge of the garden near the villas...

If you see a ripe passion fruit dangling lazily,
or a pomegranate blushing in the sun,
maybe some mint, basil, or kunde swaying in the breeze—take it.

You didn’t come to harvest.
You were just walking by.

At Tulia, we don’t gate the earth’s generosity.
We share it.

Not everything has to be earned with effort.
Some things — like fruit, like rest, like joy —
are gifts waiting quietly to be picked.

So pluck the leaf.
Taste the fruit.
Smell the herb.

You’re not stealing.

You’re just a villager, passing through.

And around here,
we greet our neighbors,
we eat what the land gives,
and we move with grace.

Karibu sana.
Help yourself.

We are all villagers here.

Need a taste of that village life? Become one of the villagers by reaching out 0708 327334 or ☎️+254740502075

Tulia Eco Garden

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