The end of the world? Not so fast

From Mexico's Maya Riviera to ancient sites in Guatemala, the region is expecting a tourism bonanza from the fateful December 21 date in the Mayan calendar, but indigenous groups are fed up with the doomsday myth.

With less than one month to go before the end of the calendar’s 5200-year cycle, tourists will find all-inclusive excursions and religious ceremonies in holy sites across Central America and Mexico.


‘‘The world has been marked by a very peculiar interpretation given by Hollywood, without much knowledge about it,’’ says Alvaro Pop, an indigenous leader in Guatemala.

‘‘In Mayan culture, scholars never were prophets. That’s why there shouldn’t be interpretations based on supposed prophecies that don’t exist.’’

The US blockbuster  2012  depicted the earth being swallowed by floods, earthquakes and volcanic eruptions, but the date in the Mayan calendar merely refers to the end of a cycle, not the end of the world.


Indigenous groups of Mayan descent make up more than half of Guatemala’s population of nearly 15 million.

But the end-of-the-world tales mean brisk business for others.

Guatemala expects to greet two million foreign visitors in 2012, an 8per cent increase from the previous year, according to the Guatemalan Tourism Institute.

Activities are planned in 13 archaeological and tourism sites on December 20. And on December 21, President Otto Perez will attend a televised ceremony at the  site of Tikal, home to majestic pyramids.

In Mexico’s white-beached Yucatan peninsula,  the Cancun Hotels Association says 90per cent of rooms are booked for the second and third weeks of December, compared to 81per cent last year.

Conferences and ceremonies are planned at the El Tortuguero archaeological site in  Tabasco, where the stone calendar dating the end of the current cycle was found.

The ancient site of Chichen Itza, with its 365-step pyramid, will play host on December 21 to an event dubbed ‘‘The End of the Long Count Mayan Calendar’’.

A ceremony will also be held that day in Copan, the main Mayan site in Honduras, with the country’s President Porfirio Lobo in attendance. But an attempt by the Chorti ethnic group to recreate an ancient Mayan ball game as part of the festivities has failed.

In neighbouring El Salvador, Tourism Minister Jose Napoleon Duarte says a light show and a ‘‘night of contact with the stars’’ are planned in the El Tazumal and Joya de Ceren sites in the west of the country.

The December date represents the end of a cycle in the Mayan long count calendar that began in 3114BC. 

It is the completion of 5200 years counted in 13 baak t’uunes, a unit of time equivalent to 144,000 days, or roughly 400 years.

The Mayan culture enjoyed a golden age between 250AD  and 900AD, before its steady decline and the arrival of Spanish  conquistadors in the 16th century.


The ancient Mayan site of Chichen Itza, in Mexico’s Yucatan peninsula. Picture: GETTY IMAGES



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