Mexico's Maya heartland greets dawn of new era

While the "Mayan Apocalypse" came and went with no sign of global doom, some visitors to Mexico's Yucatan peninsula still found the occasion a chance to ponder the event's spiritual meaning.    

Dozens of new agers were still in Merida, the city closest to the ancient Mayan city of Chichen Itza, on Saturday to attend the "Spiritual Planetary Summit 2012", which offers to teach attendees "the authentic knowledge Mayan scholars left us", according to its website.   

In addition to workshops, some attendees also participated in a conch-serenaded initiation ritual to get a 'Mayan name' and receive spiritual cleansing. 

Esperanza Rubio, who goes by the Mayan name of Lil Ku, says most people misunderstood the meaning of 21 December, but she was glad people were paying attention to the Mayan culture.  

"People got to learn about all we have here," said Rubio. "There are people who had never visited here before and people who have been absolutely won over and happy to have visited Merida and gotten to know our traditions."    

Approximately 20,000 tourists gathered at the ruins of the ancient Mayan city of Chichen Itza, near Merida, on Friday around ceremonial fires and pyramids to mark the conclusion of the 5,125-year cycle in the Mayan calendar.   

The doomsayers who had predicted apocalypse were nowhere to be seen.   

Instead, people showed up in T-shirts reading "The End of the World: I Was There."     

Vendors eager to sell their ceramic handicrafts and wooden masks called out to passing visitors, "Buy something before the world ends."   

For the masses in the ruins, December 21 sparked celebration of what they saw as the birth of a new and better age.     

No one is certain the period known as the Mayans' 13th Baktun officially ended on Friday.   

Some think it may have happened at midnight, others looked to Friday's dawn here in the Maya heartland. 

Mexico's National Institute of Anthropology and History even suggested historical calculations to synchronize the Mayan and Western calendars might be off a few days.  

It said the Mayan Long Count calendar cycle might not really end until Sunday.     

One thing, however, became clear to many by Friday afternoon: Life on Earth... continued.


APTN