3114BC and moves forward in 394-year periods known as bak’tuns. The winter solstice in 2012 marks the completion of the 13th bak’tun.
The occasion, however, has offered Mayanists and the local Maya themselves (many of whom work in the tourism industry) a soapbox from which to show the world the intricacies of one of its greatest and still mysterious civilizations. And where better to drum up interest, where better to place that soapbox than southern Mexico?
Epigraphists and Maya experts like Stuart say the prophecy foretells the beginning of a new era, according to the traditional Long Count calendar, but they argue that the Maya never mentioned that the world nor time would end. Several other Maya ruins, after all, describe dates far beyond 2012.
Many who’ve dedicated their lives to studying and promoting Maya culture can be quite defensive about the subject of a doomsday scenario. Take Brendon O'Brien of the Albuquerque -based Maya Sites Travel Services, whose December 2012 tours, he says, are already 75 percent full. When asked about his upcoming trips, O’Brien said “the hoopla is media fabricated and our clients know better.”
“Mayanists are generally smart … a cut above the average bear,” he added. “We have been doing tours to the Maya regions for 12 years and never had a ‘kook’ or fanatic on our tours that I know of. We have had no one express any concerns about being in a foreign country on those dates or some end-of-the- world scenario.”
The Mexican government, too, is trying to give prospective travelers something a bit more substantial -- and much less stressful -- to ruminate on than the “end of the world.”
López Negrete Coppel said the administration decided on the following elucidation: There will an end of an era, so to speak, but there will also be a new beginning.
To hear it in his words, this fresh start sounds pretty good.
“This new era is predicted to be full of prosperity, economic growth and peace,” López Negrete Coppel enthused. “That is our interpretation, and the reaction to that has been very positive.”
And why wouldn’t it be? In the five Mexican states covered under the Mundo Maya campaign -- Campeche, Chiapas, Quintana Roo, Tabasco and Yucatan -- López Negrete Coppel said he expects a full season with the hotels running at 100 percent by the second week of December and the biggest numbers the nation has ever seen.
Mexico, whose travel and tourism industry now contributes 13.2 percent of the GDP, set aside $10 million for the Mundo Maya 2012 initiative last summer and invited four neighboring countries with historic Maya ties -- Belize, El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala -- to collaborate. The campaign includes aggressive infrastructure investment in roads and facilities to improve access to archeological sites and develop projects like a Palace of Maya Civilization at Chichen Itza and the Museum of the Mayan World in Merida, both set to open by the end of this month.
Continuing on the celebratory (and less apocalyptic) path, Cancun tourism officials have sponsored a “Pyramid of Positive Thinking” in Tulum, about 82 miles south of Cancun’s hotel zone. The modern pyramid, the brainchild of Mexican artist Xavier de Maria y Campos, is to be composed of up to 700,000 “positive thoughts” placed in recycled polyethylene terephthalate bottles. The bottles will be layered with soil containing regional plant seeds that will eventually blanket the pyramid in green foliage and usher in a “new era of positive thinking” when complete on Dec. 21, 2012.
Over 500 Maya-themed events will take place in southeastern Mexico by the close of 2012, including blowout celebrations at the two most renowned Maya sites in each of the five Mexican states covered in the Mundo Maya circuit.
But beyond the money and attention, what Mexico really hopes to get out of the Year of the Maya is a little respect. Sure, the government acknowledges that just 40,000 of its estimated 200,000 archeological sites are properly registered. Sure, just 200 of those are open to the public. But the more Mexico can diversify its tourism offerings away from the beach and into the interior, the more it can protect its heritage, draw international crowds from beyond North America and ultimately prosper.
One of the beauties of tourism is that it spreads social wealth,” López Negrete Coppel noted. “It reaches the farthest corners of the country, reaches deep in the jungles and to the little villages.”
The Mundo Maya campaign, he said, is like a rallying cry: We’re not just America’s playground south of the border. We’re not just sun, sand and too many tequila shots. We’re a nation with a cultural wealth on par with China or Egypt.
That, he said, is Mexico’s plan for the new era. And who knows, if the doomsday bloggers hadn’t raised such a fuss, Mexico might have had the impetus to realize it.
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