SOME COOL DOOMSDAY TRAVEL TIPS

While admitting that an anti-climatic non-Doomsday doesn’t really sizzle, nonetheless Maya Tour Guide Gener Vallejos Uicab is more than happy to host tourists on Tia Stephanie Tours that allows visitors to experience the Maya culture through its food in the Yucatan Peninsula.

Food? Sign me up!

Accompanying well-respected chefs, tourists will go to market to experience various foods and flavors.

“Different dinners and different restaurants, different chefs, guest chefs, cooking with local ingredients,” explained Chef Roberto Solis of Festival Kooben.

In addition to chowing down on yummy treats, tourists can mingle with Mayans, visit ancient sites and explore a new museum dedicated to the cocoa bean.

On tour, visitors stay in boutique hotels, haciendas and lodges. The 10-day “Culture & Cuisine of the Maya” tour will begin November 28 and costs $3,185 per person, double occupancy.

Not to be outdone, Lucy Fleming, the owner of the Lodge at Chaa Creek in Belize, is planning a Maya celebration for the Winter Solstice.

“Most of what we have been able to reconstruct about ancient Maya history and timelines comes from the stone monuments known as stelae which have survived over the ages,” Fleming explained. “So it's only fitting that we continue the tradition for 2012 by launching our own (stelae), which hopefully will be read and appreciated by historians thousands of years from now.”

The Lodge at Chaa Creek is having Maya artisans carve a 2012 Winter Solstice stone monument using traditional tools and methods. The inscriptions will use Maya  hieroglyphic symbols used by the Maya. Suitable stone is being located and prepared for use and will be carved for the December 21 dedication.

During the weeks leading up to the Winter Solstice, Chaa Creek will host lectures and construct an “authentic” Maya village with hands-on workshops including arts and crafts, weaving, roof thatching, cooking and the preparation of Xocoatl, the Maya hot cacao drink from which all chocolate developed.

“Given the importance of December 21, 2012, we want to do something rather grand, but at the same time respectful,” Fleming said. “Chaa Creek sits directly within the Heartland of the Maya and a large proportion of our staff is of Maya descent. We've been hosting legitimate Maya research for years, so it is very important to us that the culmination of the 13th Bak'tun of the Maya Long Count celebrated at Chaa Creek with the reverence and enthusiasm it deserves.”

And, well, let’s not forget, make a buck.