(Doomsday tourists walk on the streets of Sirince December 21, 2012. REUTERS/Osman Orsal )
Friday was a quiet day under a clear blue sky in the small village of Sirince in western Turkey, where the population is only 600 people.
Thousands of tourists from around the world had flocked here, believing it would be spared a apocalypse predicted by ancient Mayans to occur on Friday. Others had come to this picturesque village of little white houses in the hills east of the Aegean Sea to witness the event but did not expect the world to end.
Believers in the phenomenon see Dec. 21, 2012, as the date prophesised by an ancient Mayan civilisation in which the earth would meet a fiery end, based on interpretations of a calendar that spans more than 5,000 years. Solar storms, earthquakes and massive volcanoes would mark the cataclysmic event, according to some theories.
None of that happened, but that didn’t keep it from being an interesting day.
