A few hours drive from the Riviera Maya, Mexico's main tourist attraction, is the root of the prophecy. It is the old city of Coba, within which is the stone stele No. 1 located in the group Macanxoc in which dates are recorded in April, three of which are past, but the ultimate is the future that are inscribed 'fatal' date: December 21, 2012. One day around that have developed interpretations of all kinds, from the alarmist talk about the end of the universe, the more cautious, and alluding to a change in cycle marked by natural disasters.

Abelardo Chimal May, expert archaeological park, bet on the second version: "This stele, the most important of Maya society, tells us it will change the world as we know it, but will not be the definitive end".

This discreet man with indigenous features, does not want to create panic, but warns that other prophecies of their ancestors were served: "In 1520 the Mayans predicted that an unknown man was coming from somewhere far away, bringing with it problems. And so it happened, the mysterious man was Hernán Cortés, who arrived on horseback with the Spanish colonists."

A few miles from Coba, in the center of the Yucatan Peninsula, lays the Mayan community of Tres Reyes. There the shaman Eloy rises to extreme predictions and provides some tangible clues: the date will be preceded by two or three days of darkness. "The effect it has on us will depend on how we are spiritually prepared," he says at the door of the adobe house in which just officiate a ceremony. "There will be sunshine and the trees are dry. We will live an energy shift and while some panic, the more prepared not scared. No one can say exactly how it will be or when to begin, there is room for 72 hours, but we still have time to prepare spiritually. No matter that you believe in God," he warns.

In the Yucatan peninsula today live many Mayan communities that function as cooperatives, in which everyone seems to have knowledge of the prophecy. "What it says is that the world of hatred and materialism will end in December 2012. That day mankind will have to choose between disappearing as a thinking species that threatens to destroy the planet or move towards integration in harmony with the universe, " says Herman, an artisan who offers tourists the objects made in their community located in the middle of the forest.

David Cememay expert archaeological site of Chichen Itza, one of the new seven wonders of the world that shows the splendor of the old civilization, tries to give the matter real math. "The Maya had a great knowledge of the movement of the sun, moon and stars and so predicting the weather or how the crops were going out." "The Maya had life cycles of 52 years, which organized the harvest time and construction. They said that with each cycle began a new life. On December 21, 2012 will end a cycle of 'Long Count'.

The Mayans had several calendars, one of them is called "Long Count." The "Long Count" series of twenty years has called each uinals, tun, katun and baktuns. Attention that this looks like a tongue twister: Each Uinal (month) is 20 kin, a tun uinals 18 (months), 360 kin and close to 365 days in a year, in line five days Uayeb. After this exception, returned to vigesimal system, again using the factor 20, then a Katun was 7200 days, twenty tunes. The next step was a twenty Baktun katuns formed for a total of 144,000 Kines. 400 tunes Are you still there?. In short: the Mayan calendar date but does not mark the most recent cycles and cycle runs from August 13, 3113 (or 3114 BC) to December 21, 2012, the day begins a new cycle. So the 2012 does not mark the end of the world but the end of a cycle, but that will change the weather and the earth, " he adds.

And to prove the veracity of his theories, the endless lists of climate change we are experiencing. "The Mayan predictions are being fulfilled: it is increasing the temperature of the earth, the poles are melting and crops are altered. As we approach the end of the cycle these changes will become more evident, "he says.

(Source: elmundo.es)