According to the Mayan calendar prophesy, December 21, 2012 was supposed to be the end of the world.
The first revisions would start pouring in earlier in the year, stating that the Mayans were a little off with their predictions, although people weren’t quite sure by how much. The margin for error here was anywhere between three weeks and three centuries.
Some would dismiss the prophesy altogether: not to worry, NASA reassured us. Bah, humbug, astronomers would claim. Yet, surveys said that 10% of the world’s population believed that the world would come to an apocalyptic end.
This would prompt many nervous nellies out there around the globe to prepare adequately for doomsday. The sale of bunkers was at an all-time high—I am thinking, why bother, if the world is coming to an end? Just how long would you expect to survive in that thing? Weapon sales flourished, and thousands of people enrolled in martial arts classes. People sold their houses, their cars, and quit their jobs in eerie anticipation of the end of the world.
Bolivia would add an extra twist. According to reports, President Evo Morales as well as thousands (as many as 50,000) of indigenous members of different nationalities flocked to the Isla Del Sol (birth place of the Sun God) for the day in Lake Titicaca, although it was uncertain why. Although even Morales was fairly sure that the world was not going to end that day, he was fairly convinced that the stars were aligned to such a degree that people would change altogether.
Here, humanity would have to make a choice, according to the prophesy: either humans would have to disappear as a thinking species and evolve towards integrating with the entire universe, or perish.
To put it in Spanish: this was supposed to me the end of the Macha, which translates into hatred, egotism, division, and capitalism, and the beginning of the Placha, which is love and community spirit. This, according to the theory by none other than Foreign Minister Choquehuanca. There was going to be a new found respect for Mother Earth. And there must be, must be the end of Coca Cola. I am not kidding.
Following several high profile gun massacres, the Bolivian government might want to reverse that prediction.
Ironically, the Foreign Minister’s announcement was made after a contract was signed to construct an airport in nearby Copacabana, the main Bolivian town on Lake Titicaca.
Well, in the end we know what happened. Although we did not bid sayonara to the world, we certainly did to the Mayan calendar.
