2012: Myth or Reality?

I have to admit when I first realized we were meeting up with Mayan descendants I was excited. I mean with all this hype about 2012 who wouldn't want the opportunity to ask the descendants themselves about the fate of our civilization?


As luck would have it many of the people we met with spoke about the Mayan calendar because it's such a major part of their lives. A couple even brought up the possibility of our world as we know it coming to an end.

For starters it's important to understand that the calendar is very intricate. Based solely on astronomy it seems amazing that people without our technology could create such an accurate calendar. For anyone who is not familiar with how the system works I found this short video to help explain. It is believed that 2012 is the end of a 394 year period called B'ak'tun. Traditionally the Mayans believed this time represented great change, but nobody ever stated what would happened when the calendar ran out.




Two of the men we met with were quite convinced that drastic change will occur. They both had similar things to say about how destructive humans are. They talked about how we waste resources and keep taking from mother nature like we are entitled to everything.

The first man said he didn't think the world would come to an end, but he believed there would be a lot of suffering and change. He believed the people that would be most affected would be those at the bottom. For example the rivers may run dry and the have-nots would be without water becuase people with all the money and power would take it from them. According to him this is already happening but 2012 will be the breaking point where the most people will suffer.

The second man who discussed the issue was our tour guide in Tikal. Time after time again he would talk about how powerful mother nature is and how she always takes back what is hers. He mentioned the movie Hollywood produced and insisted it wasn't that far off. Having never seen 2012 I asked him to elaborate. He said that the world as we know it will cease to exist. mother nature will take back what is hers and our civilization will fall, leaving room for a new civilization to rise.

I don't know if I believe in 2012 or not but it was definitely cool hearing Mayans talk about it.