As the foreigner invasion continues full-steam in Cotacachi, many locals are identifying a curious trend: behind the walls of their private compounds many new residents are worried that the world will be ending on December 21, 2012.
The end is near….for locals getting priced out of their communities by predatory real estate developers.
A good portion of Gringocacheños (gringos living in Cotacachi) have, from the start, suprised locals with their unorthodox beliefs and delusions of grandeur. Examples are numerous. A few: Many ex-pats believe humans are aliens placed on Earth by a master race. An American real estate developer compares his helping Americans buy cheaply-made, cookie cutter homes to helping Jews escape from the Nazis during the Holocaust. Self-proclaimed gringo “spiritual teachers” abound. I could go on and on.
Now, we may be aliens and real estate development may be the most morally ethical occupation in the world, but one thing I can assure you is that the Maya did not predict that the world will end on December 21st!
Settle down everyone. Listen, the Maya Apocalypse theory has gotten way out of hand. The entire idea that the world will end is based on an extremely subjective interpretation of a single hieroglyphic tablet found in El Tortuguero, Tabasco, Mexico in the
1960s. The hieroglyphs from El Tortuguero represent a small sampling of the religous beliefs of a small city that prospered between 644 and679 AD. The Maya were never a centralized empiric society like the Inca, rather a extra-regional group of competing miltary city states that shared linquistic and cosmological similarities. The Maya florished throughout what is today southern Mexico, Belize, Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras over 1500 years.
The Tortuguero hieroglyphs say: “The thirteenth calendar ends on the day 4 Ahau, the third of Uniiw, when there will occur a spectacle and the God
of the Nine will come down to the red.”
The thirteenth calendar refers to the 5,126 year Maya long count calendar which resets itself on the Winter Solstice. The God of the Nine could be any of the pantheon of Gods from the Underworld, which has nine levels. Red represents East, the direction of the sunrise, and blood, the elixir of life (life comes from death).
The passage wasn’t even fully translated until 1996 and served as the spark that has exploded into the Mayan Doomsday Prophecy. Where does it say the world is ending? I could just as easily mean an Underworld god will be pulled back down in the direction of the rising sun. Maybe it means the dawn of the Age of Aquarius. Who knows?
Western culture has always loved a good doomsday scare. You can book your doomsday vacation on any number of Mayan temples right now online!
For anyone interested in a fact-based history of the Maya, their religous beliefs, and the inaccuracy of Mayan Doomsday Prophecy I highly recommend 2012 and the End of the World: The Western Roots of the Maya Apocalypse by Matthew Restall and Amara Solari:
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/10381319-2012-and-the-end-of-the-world
apocalyptic retirement?
Hey, if so many newly arrived foreigners think the world is ending in a few months, why are they investing in shoddily built houses and condos and driving prices up to the point where locals can’t afford to buy land?
Back on Earth, for many poor Cotacacheños 2012 really has marked the beginning of the end.
Responsible Retirement in Cotacachi, Ecuador 
It is a pity that investors move in when someone finds a little bit of comfort in an area which he/she can afford and move to. That spoils it for others who want to start a NEW life in another country, either as a younger person or a retiree.
About 10 years ago people who advertised ‘cheaper’ retirement places, mentioned that it would be wise to employ locals on a weekly basis to do cleaning, housework, gardening etc. It would give employment to locals – and it offered time to learn another language which is a very important part of moving anywhere that has not YOUR language.
Learning to share your skills always helps. Start a greenhouse – involve the locals, they know which vegetables and fruit grow best in the area – share the marketing. Learn about trickle irrigation – if needed – for larger projects. If your community has the will and motive, buy a bit of land and help the natives build their own accommodation – maybe on a shared title basis. Check out possibilities of native crafts which can be revived. Be active in your retirement – if you are retired.
susiecoast