Moonshine turns Mayan horse race in Guatemala rowdy

Despite a drinking ban mayhem erupted at a traditional Mayan horse race on Sunday with riders falling off their horses and drunken spectators stumbling through the mountain village.

Hundreds of tourists and locals gathered for the annual spectacle in Todo Santos Cuchumatan on Sunday to cheer the dozens of riders charging back and forth along a 330-foot (100-meter) length of road for up to seven hours.

But the macho test of stamina was marred, as it has been in the past, by the copious amount of homemade spirits the riders consume, sometimes for days before the race.

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World's Largest Pyramid Discovered, Lost Mayan City Of Mirador Guatemala CNN

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Mayan elder denies his culture predicted 2012 end of the world doomsday

If you heard the world is going to end in two years' time, don't worry. That's the message from a Mayan elder, who's rubbished suggestions that his culture predicted an apocalypse in 2012.

Apolinario Chile Pixtun says he tired of being asked about the end of the world during a trip to the UK. Doomsday was supposedly predicted by the Mayan people, the indigenous population of parts of Mexico and Central America.

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Mayans 'played' pyramids to make music for rain god

SIT on the steps of Mexico's El Castillo pyramid in Chichen Itza and you may hear a confusing sound. As other visitors climb the colossal staircase their footsteps begin to sound like raindrops falling into a bucket of water as they near the top. Were the Mayan temple builders trying to communicate with their gods?

The discovery of the raindrop "music" in another pyramid suggests that at least some of Mexico's pyramids were deliberately built for this purpose. Some of the structures consist of a combination of steps and platforms, while others, like El Castillo, resemble the more even-stepped Egyptian pyramids.

Researchers were familiar with the raindrop sounds made by footsteps on El Castillo - a hollow pyramid on the Yucatán Peninsula. But why the steps should sound like this and whether the effect was intentional remained unclear.

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The Fall of the Maya: 'They Did it to Themselves'

For 1200 years, the Maya dominated Central America. At their peak around 900 A.D., Maya cities teemed with more than 2,000 people per square mile -- comparable to modern Los Angeles County. Even in rural areas the Maya numbered 200 to 400 people per square mile. But suddenly, all was quiet. And the profound silence testified to one of the greatest demographic disasters in human prehistory -- the demise of the once vibrant Maya society.

What happened? Some NASA-funded researchers think they have a pretty good idea.

"They did it to themselves," says veteran archeologist Tom Sever.

"The Maya are often depicted as people who lived in complete harmony with their environment,' says PhD student Robert Griffin. "But like many other cultures before and after them, they ended up deforesting and destroying their landscape in efforts to eke out a living in hard times."

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