photo credit: Shilo Urban

I had traveled to Mexico before, but not like this. Like many Texans, Mexico was the first foreign country I ever visited. As a six-year-old, I crossed the border into Nuevo Laredo with my family, and I remember gaping at the colorful pottery in the market, just the same as I do now. A few years later, we embarked on a classic Galveston cruise to Cancun and Cozumel, washing ashore at Playa del Carmen with legions of Americans to shop for bottles of vanilla and rainbow-striped blankets.

But that’s not Mexico. Not really. Playa is a Disney-fied version of Mexico that’s designed to cater to vacationing Americans who want their Starbucks and their chain restaurants. Go to Hulen Mall, turn off the air conditioning, eat some tacos – that’s Playa del Carmen, minus the beach. “It’s plastic,” one Mexican said to me, “It’s not real Mexico.”

Real Mexico? It isn’t hard to find when you dare to look beyond the cruise ship crowds, the pre-packaged R&R, and your preconceptions of the country.

photo credit: Shilo Urban

Flying into the metropolitan sprawl of Mexico City, brightly colored buildings pop up through the concrete sprawl: purple, pink, and lemon yellow. Flying two and a half hours to reach a foreign country is a traveler’s dream; I arrived in Mexico with no jet lag, an abundance of energy, and plenty of vacation money left over from my $128 flight. I headed straight to the Zocalo, the vast urban plaza that is the pulsing heart of the city. My Uber driver chatted the whole way, friendly about my attempts to converse in very broken Spanish.

He dropped me off by the ornate Metropolitan Cathedral, which overlooks the Zocalo and the Templo Mayor, an unearthed Aztec pyramid. This area had also been the heart of the ancient Aztec empire. Its colonial church and Aztec temple are strange neighbors but also a fitting microcosm of modern Mexico, which has fused Spanish influences into a Mesoamerican world. Subway cars rumble past centuries-old stone pyramids. Party boats glide through Aztec-built canals.

I wander past colossal carved heads and intricate jade masks at the National Anthropological Museum, a mind-blowing collection of Mexican treasures. Next door at Chapultepec Park, families float at the lake in paddleboats and kids run down the pathways with balloons. Hawkers yell out their wares: red wrestling masks, light-up play swords, and pink cotton candy.

photo credit: Shilo Urban

One of the greatest archaeological sites on the planet rests in the sunshine just outside of Mexico City. The ancient city of Teotihuacan should a household name. Home to the third-largest pyramid ever built, Teotihuacan was established two thousand years ago by a people whose name is lost to history. We don’t even know what they called their city. Hundreds of years after it was abandoned, the mighty Aztecs named it Teotihuacan, City of the Gods, because they imagined that only gods could build such a place. Stepped pyramids tower over its enormous main avenue, which runs for over two miles. Climb 248 steps to the top of the Pyramid of the Sun, and you are rewarded with magnificent views, and you can feel the lingering power of the mysterious people who once made this their home.

Teotihuacan was the first of nine ancient cities I explored, each revealing a new facet of Mesoamerica. We all know about the Aztec and Maya, but Mexico’s ancient cultural tapestry was much more diverse than that. Toltec, Olmec, Zapotec, Mixtec, Tarascan, and Veracruz peoples have all left their marks on the land and contributed to Mexico’s distinctly rich heritage.

In Mitla, the Zapotecs designed jigsaw puzzle-like walls with thousands of little pieces to withstand the region’s frequent earthquakes. Palenque’s steamy-hot jungle ruins revealed the power of Great King Pakal through delicate artwork and monumental architecture. And Chichen Itza? The “World Wonder” Maya city was crowded yet endlessly impressive – and totally Instagrammable. Professional models posed in front of the biggest pyramid, their backs to the cameras and long dresses and hair flowing behind. It’s so nice that the ancient Maya provided such shareworthy backgrounds for our selfies.

photo credit: Shilo Urban

My trip through southern Mexico ended predictably at the beaches of Playa del Carmen and Cancun. The stunning blues of the Caribbean Sea in Cancun literally took my breath away, and my beach resort was a welcome change after three weeks of budget hotels. But I felt like I was in a capsule there, a sanitized and processed version of Mexico far removed from the rest of my experiences elsewhere in the country. I talked to resort guests who returned here to the coast time and time again, but had never ventured any further in. “Isn’t it dangerous?” one sunbather asked me. “How can you travel on your own?”

I explained that the regions of Mexico that I had been traveling in were ranked as “Security Level 2” by the U.S. State Department. This is the same security level as Great Britain, Italy, and France. Mexico City, Oaxaca, Campeche, Chiapas, and the Yucatan are all far from the border troubles that make the news here in the States. Is it 100% safe? No. Is it 100% comfortable? No. The roads in Chiapas are studded with speedbumps, and the struggle of Montezuma’s revenge is definitely real. But sometimes you have to give up a little comfort for the sake of adventure. And adventure is waiting for you in Mexico.

Raised in the Fort Worth area, Shilo Urban moved to Austin, Maine, Paris, Seattle, New Zealand, and Los Angeles before finding her way home a few years ago. Along the way, she has had over three dozen different jobs, including high school French teacher, record label manager, and farmhand for endangered livestock breeds. She’s traveled to more than 50 countries and always has the next trip planned. Shilo has been a freelance writer for over a decade and has published in Fort Worth Magazine, Fort Worth Weekly, and Afar. Her interests include lost civilizations, jalapeño peppers, and Game of Thrones. She is currently writing a thriller and lives in Fort Worth with her two wiener dogs, Steve and Lenny.

The post Seeking Adventure in Mexico first appeared on Tanglewood Moms.

Photo courtesy of Sachi Mitchell

No one wants to admit is that change is scary. We would be moving to an island in the middle of the Pacific where we didn’t know anyone and where we had been a handful of times. If it were just my husband and me, it wouldn’t be a big deal. But I was taking my children out of a wonderful, supportive school and community where they were thriving to move them to this unknown, and it weighed heavily on me.

Jason and I fought a lot over the decision, mainly because he was pushing me out of my comfort zone. I take comfort in the status quo. Jason thrives on taking risks. He is a successful businessman because he takes risks. I, on the other hand, like my routine and playing it safe. This move to Hawaii was anything but playing it safe. After many, many “discussions”, there were several reasons I said yes to Hawaii.

I want my children to learn to be brave. No one is just brave, it’s something you have to practice. Ultimately, I want them to never let fear dictate their choices. In fact, life is about looking at your fears and instead of turning away, walking toward them. But those first steps towards fear felt overwhelming. Some days I felt frozen in anxiety. Some days I felt like I was drowning and wanted to turn back to shore. Along that walk, we stumbled. The important part, the courageous part, was to get up and keep going. Fall, get up, keep going.

Photo courtesy of Sachi Mitchell

Another reason to move was to simplify our lives. We thought if we pare down on the busy, we may be able to focus on the important. If we live smaller and more simply, we will appreciate the meaningful.

This part of the move proved to be back-breaking work. Literally. We had a big house with closets bursting at the seams. We had a garage full of junk and a shed in the backyard that was too scary to enter. For months, we gave away, sold, donated, and dumped. None of our furniture could come with us because the price to ship to the island was astronomical. We shipped two cars, we each had two boxes to fill, and that was it. It was a tough test: “Do I love this thing enough to bring it to Hawaii?”

Surprisingly, the kids didn’t blink an eye. They were quick to dump everything into trash bags, and I was the one shouting, “You can’t throw that away!” I would take something out of the donation pile only to realize they were right. It all needed to go. The process was draining, overwhelming, and downright embarrassing. I was ashamed at how much excess we had accumulated over the years, but ultimately, I learned that all these things were just that: just things. The most important pieces in my life were the three people going with me to Hawaii. My mantra was “Clear out the busy, clear out the junk, and focus on the important. Let go of the things weighing you down, and you jump that much higher.”

Photo courtesy of Sachi Mitchell

We boarded the plane to Hawaii on July 10th, 2018, with our eight boxes. We rented a house, we enrolled the kids in school, and we were on a high. We did it! After years of preparing and working towards this goal, things had worked out, and we were finally here. This was honeymoon phase of our transition. Every day, we went to a new beach, tried a new food, or went on a different hike. We explored our new home with voraciousness.

After a few months, we hit some stumbling blocks. The excitement of the new started to wear thin. For the kids, there were some days that felt overwhelming. New town, new school, new kids, new accents, new foods. Everything was different at their new school. No one wears shoes inside the classrooms, there are no uniforms, and school work is done on your Chromebook. They had to learn new rules about going to the bathroom, checking out a book, or going through the lunch line. Being the new kid is fun at first, but that wears off, and you realize that making friends takes time. There were mornings when Jonah begged to not go to school. It was hard to watch them struggle.

Photo courtesy of Sachi Mitchell

At times, I felt like we made a mistake moving here, and it made me question everything. I leaned on my core group of mom friends, and they encouraged me to share my struggles with my kids. I was having trouble making friends, too, and I felt lonely and isolated some days. At night, we would talk about it. We would share our feelings and cry together. Moving away made us love Fort Worth even more, but we had to leave room in our hearts for Hawaii and be open to this new experience. We would end by saying that we were so thankful to have each other. We were a team, and we were in this together. The good and the bad. No one was alone in this adventure.

Our new school curriculum includes Japanese language and Hawaiian Studies. I am half Japanese and can help Jonah with his Japanese homework. For the first time, Jonah looked at me and said, “I am so lucky to have a Japanese mom.” It was something a kid just says, without much thought. But it was how he felt in the moment, so he blurted it out. And it’s a moment that has stuck with me. I grew up in Texas most of my life and being Asian was far from cool. It was a full circle moment to hear my child say that to me, and it felt good.

Photo courtesy of Sachi Mitchell

We have come through these stumbling blocks stronger and wiser. We proved to ourselves that we can be brave and go for it. We can fall and get back up. After nine months, we have found an incredible group of friends and have a supportive community. Our kids are thriving at their new school, happy to have sweet classmates, and have joined great sports teams. We look around and pinch ourselves that we live in paradise. And what we have found is that paradise is best seen with grateful eyes and a brave heart.

Sachi Mitchell is a mom who moved from the Tanglewood area to Hawaii with her family. Her story appears in the May/June issue of Madeworthy.

The post Chasing a Dream first appeared on Tanglewood Moms.