Playa Negra

Playa Negra is a beach in the Guanacaste Province of Costa Rica. It is south of the town of Tamarindo. Los Pargos is the town where Playa Negra is located. Playa Negra offers several restaurants, from the now famous Peruvian food at Cafe Playa Negra, French cuisine at Villa, Mexican food, and a pizza parlour.

It has developed to be an outdoors activity growing town with a yoga center, adventure tours, several small shops, shops for surfing-related souvenirs, surf rentals along with various cabinas and hotels.

Surf

Playa Negra is home to the surfing break known worldwide since being featured in Bruce Brown's movie Endless Summer II. However, there are many accounts of individuals who surfed Playa Negra long before the movie came out. Some claim to have been here in the 1970s.

This beach is considered by many surfers to be one of the top spots in Costa Rica^{[citation needed]}. It has become famous in part to its ease of access apart from its quality as a surfing wave. Playa Negra has a rock reef bottom with good right-hand barrels and a well defined channel for paddling out. This channel also assists surfers to return to the point where the wave breaks. There is a strong rip current that takes the surfers back through the impact zone. Depending on the swell direction and tides a left breaking wave may also be surfed. The break has good exposure to both Northern and Southern Hemisphere swells and is reasonably consistent year-round. The wave can break well with large and small swells.

It may also produce good surfing waves during the entire tide range.

External links

• Playa Negra surfing information, by Costa Rica Surf Tour