Welcome back to the planet...
I've been here all along. Your suggestion that the Mayan city-states have been supplanted by modern drug gangs is interesting but off-point. The OP suggested the Mayans are extinct; they are not. There will be no 2012 "Apocalypse" nor did the Mayans predict one.
When in human history have common folks been lucky enough to avoid exploitation by the brutal and powerful? History is nothing if not repetitive.