Yucatan Food Tour Explores Peninsula's Ancient Flavors

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A special food tour in Mexico - where there’s a lot of talk about the end of the world - ensures doomsday travelers will not go out hungry. NY1's Valarie D'Elia filed the following report.

Call it Maya 2K, the hype equivalent to Y2k, when the Mayan Calendar enters a new cycle on December 21.

"It’s hard to say that it’s going to be the end of the world because Mayan people are not prophets. Our Mayan people believe, a new generation is coming but it's more of a change in conscience," said Maya Tour Guide Gener Vallejos Uicab.

A change in consciousness doesn’t have quite the marketing zing as the end of the world, so I cut through the tourism gimmicks and on a media visit found one very authentic tour to mark the occasion.

Tia Stephanie Tours takes an intimate group to experience the culture of the Maya through the food of the Yucatan Peninsula.

In the company of prominent chefs, you will go to market for a flavor of the area and attend a buzzy food festival.

"Different dinners and different restaurants, different chefs, guest chefs, cooking with local ingredients," said Chef Roberto Solis of Festival Kooben.

In between all the eating opps, you can mingle with Mayan people, tour ancient sites and learn how cocoa became their currency at a brand new museum on an active plantation.

Accommodations along the way include boutique hotels, haciendas and lodges.

For those of us who still have an appetite for doomsday, you can think of the tour as your last Maya meal.

The 10-day Culture & Cuisine of the Maya tour takes place on November 28 and costs $3,185 per person, double occupancy.

For more information, visit www.tiastephanietours.com.

As is common practice in the travel industry, Travel With Val often receives complimentary travel or reduced "media" rates at hotels, resorts and attractions, including those that may be featured in these reports. Such consideration is not taken in exchange for any express or implied promise or understanding of any nature, particularly regarding the content of these reports. These reports only feature travel providers personally recommended by Valarie D’Elia in the exercise of her independent editorial judgment, and do not represent the endorsement of Time Warner Cable or any third party.