Downtown roti shops like Curry Masala, Patraj, and The Hott Shoppe, plus storefronts like the Pepper Pies Shop, which serves a wider variety of Indian take-out, all satisfy for midday meals at $3-$5 including a sweet drink. The little Manna Café in a yellow gingerbread house on St. Vincent Street specializes in low cholesterol foods, while the Breakfast Shed behind yellow zinc sheeting at the cruise-ship complex serves three meals daily of what a local nurse calls "the highest-cholesterol, highest-sodium, most delicious food you can get."

Almost all the city's best restaurants serve meals at considerably less than comparable U.S. meals. Stylish in mahogany and stone atop the Kapok Hotel, Tiki Village specializes in Polynesian food. More than 170 entrées including shrimp, fish, beef, pork, and chicken cost less than $10, many $6 or $7. Starters and dessert together add another $6. With 25 percent for tax and tip, many diners will enjoy meals for $20 including drinks.

Also in town, the excellent Woodford Café on Tragarete Road occupies a remodeled grocery and rum shop redolent of the colonial city with old neighborhood photos, Carnival costumes, and live steel drum music (three-course dinners about $20).

Lazing along north coast beaches Trinidad's pulse slows on the north coast. At popular Maracas Bay, Trinis are out picnicking weekends. Steel bands play while "shark-and-bake" stalls dispense fried fish in buns laced with free condiments, washed down with a Carib, the local lager. Midweek, vacationers can have the beach largely to themselves, whether driving the 30 minutes each way over and back while staying in the city or else moving on to one of the north shore's affordable lodgings. To get there, taxis are more expensive than renting a car in Port-of-Spain's airport. Try Econo-Car Rentals (669-2342), whose prices start at $25 a day.

The coastal vacation village of choice is another 30 minutes east from Maracas Bay. That's Blanchisseuse, affordable and totally relaxed, named for laundresses once said to be prevalent here along the Marianne River. Pronounced "blon-she-suhze," the village hugs half a mile of two-lane road beside the sea. Hills rise sharply behind. A hundred-year-old suspension bridge across the river marks the end of town, from where the road turns to dirt, then trail. Eric Blackman rents river kayaks and leads hiking tours to hillside waterfalls. But mostly visitors hang out at the beaches, in the hotel bars, and rum shops, dancing at the Casbah, sampling Rennie Bobb's woodcarvings.

Upscale in design but casual in dress like everyplace else in town is Surf's Country Inn. Three hillside rooms with double-door balconies plus terrace restaurant and lounge form a charming compound with a lovely view through dense tropical foliage to the twisty road below, a striking cove beach and the sea (North Coast Rd., Blanchisseuse, 669-2475, fax 669-3016; $60 includes tax, service, and breakfast; four-course meals about $15).

Largest compound, just before the suspension bridge, is Laguna Mar Beach Resort with 16 rooms in three hillside lodges and an indoor-outdoor restaurant. Back of the restaurant is the big beach at the river mouth. Rooms are high-ceilinged, simply furnished, and, like all in the village, fan-cooled, unscreened, and, almost everywhere, with mosquito netting--as easy to arrange as it is sensible. (Mile Marker 651/2, Paria Main Rd., Blanchisseuse, 669-2963, lagunamar.com; $75-$85.)

Two B&Bs offer three arty rooms, each only steps from dramatic cove beaches: Second Spring lies more quietly west of the village on the sea; Almond Brook in the heart of the village and across from Rennie Bobb's studio. (Second Spring, Lamp Post 191, Paria Main Rd., Blanchisseuse, 669-3909; $50, hot plate and fridge; cottage $70, full kitchen; continental breakfast $5 per person. Almond Brook, Lamp Post 16, Paria Main Rd., Blanchisseuse, 678-0822; $50 for a double includes full breakfast and use of kitchen. Both include tax and service.)

Herb Hiller is a former executive director of the Caribbean Travel Association.Wyatt Gallery's photographs were exhibited at The Mercedes-Benz Manhattan Gallery from October 2nd - November 2nd, 2003. The gallery is located at 536 W. 41st Street at 11th Avenue.For more information, go to wyattgallery.com