Ground Zero for 2012 in Copan, Honduras

1. Looking across the lush valley from the Mayan ruins in Copan, Honduras, I realize that this area of Honduras can define itself. It doesn’t need the world to write its story.

2. Copan Ruinas is a charming town with steep and narrow cobblestone streets set far from everywhere but close to the earth. It is significant in the 2012 discussion because of its magnificent Mayan ruins, but the people here are just living their lives one day at a time.

3. Cowboys lounge on street corners, tipping their hats as I walk by.

4. Children from the nearby Chortí community, today’s Mayan descendants, gather on doorsteps, their hands full of the cornhusk dolls they create and sell to generate income for their village, La Pintada.

5. The ruins near Copan are grandiose and detailed but quiet.

6. I spend long minutes contemplating the Mayans’ tenacity in creating structure upon structure as new rulers took over. One of the people I am with mentions that it’s a good thing we don’t build White Houses on top of one another.

7. There are very few people wandering the grounds, and the experience is made more personal with the attention of a guide who is passionate about ancient Mayan history.

8. I watch the shadows bounce across the stone structures and piles of G.O.K. (God Only Knows).

9. Beneath a shade structure, I stretch my neck to view the one of the longest inscriptions of hieroglyphics on the planet.

10. An archaeologist who has helped unearth the Copan ruins balks at the idea that 2012 will be the end of the world. “It is only the end of a calendar cycle,” he says. “It is a time of new beginnings, not the end of the world.” Just as we would change our calendars on December 31, the people in Copan will do the same.

11. At a roundtable dinner, where I have the chance to chat with people who were born and raised in Copan, the message takes on a hopeful tone. In addition to being a pragmatic change in time, some people in Copan look at 2012 as an opportunity to deal with the things that are wrong with humanity. “The change is already coming. Look at all the unrest in the world,” they say, pointing to war, famine, disease and general anger simmering around the planet. One thing is for sure, no one is counting down the days until the end of the world.

12. I relax among my emerald-splashed surroundings in this isolated area of Honduras, far from the fast-paced fury of my plugged-in life, and I hope they are right. We could use a change, a new beginning.

13. Life in Copan will continue as it always has. People will shop in the market. Children will chase each other down the street, and women will sell hot food from their street stands. Right now, December 21, 2012, is a long way from this corner of Central America.