My wife worked in Guatemala at a Mayan village a few years ago. She asked about the whole apocalypse thing and they had no idea about it. The funny thing is after the movie 2012 came out, thats when they asked her about this whole thing.
Basically, the outside world are the ones that make a big deal out of it and the Mayans end up believing it.
Also, saw a political cartoon that had something along the lines of
Priest Assistant"hey Priest, it looks like that our calendar ends on 2012. What should we do about that?"
Priest "Don't worry, by then it'll be Obama's fault."