The ruins at Tulum are not awesome. They don't loom over you, don't fade away into jungle, don't convey impressions of glory and sacrifice and curse. But man are they cool.
These are the only Mayan ruins built at the beach: the Summer Cabana of the Gods. The setting couldn't be lovelier. The Mayans were celebrating The Dawn, but they picked a site that also celebrates the peculiar beauty of the Yucatan coast: the temples standing above the sliding tones of blue/green on a crumbling cliff of limestone, the cracks and clefts flowering, revealing trees, protecting white sand beachlets. Yes, here's an architectural and historical site where you can just take off your clothes (or at least your bikini top, apparently) and plunge into the sea, rolling around and kissing somebody like Jeff Bridges and whatshername in that dum Phil Collins movie. Loll on you back and gaze up the crumbling cliffs at the old temple. Awesome's not everything: cute's nice, too.
The site is very well preserved (maybe even a little suspiciously) but then it's the latest of the Mayan monuments, abandoned only 500 years ago. About the time the Spaniards showed up and started killing everybody and destroying pagan temples, probably not coincidentally. It's surrounded by a wall of piled stone, with towers at the corner like an enormous sand castle, and inside is a cluster of small buildings set on a grass lawn. Perfect site for Lawn Parties of the Gods. there are plaques in Spanish, English, and Mayan that tell you what you're looking at, to an extent. What's funny is that it's all supposition: the names of all these ruins were given by the conquistadors, who had absolutely no scientific of cultural curiosity. They stamped out the civilization and generally tore down the temples. Then they called things whatever they thought they looked like. So you have all these places called Observatories, Nun's Quarters, and Watchtowers that only stem from some soldier's memory of a slightly similar structure back home. You can easily rename the structures yourself. The Picnic Tables over there by the Barbecue are obvious, the Dog Houses would still be functional, as would (and, it seems, IS) the Outhouse. You can no longer see the alleged murals in the Mother In Law's Unit, but the Pool Hall and Brothel could be ready to go with a weekend's remodeling.
The main feature of Tulum is "The Castle", with the usual steps up to an area you just know was an alter where people ripped out living hearts and other colorful acts of communion. Life's a beach. And its main feature is a relief sculpture that you can still see most of, which they call "The Descending God" (I prefer the term "The Dog Paddler"). They tell you it's a god coming down from heaven and all, but I look out at the tumble of translucent aquamarine and the slight break over the reef, then I look at this stone dude and I think, "Hell, he's just going for a nice dive." But hey, I'm no archeologist or anything. Though I know a gorgeous site when I see one and would pay the three buck entry fee over and over again just to hang out in this place: the Timeshare Condos of the Gods.