Trinidad's agricultural heart

Travelling through Central Trinidad brings back the past, when sugar and cocoa dominated the economy. During harvest, ox-drawn carts carrying sugar-cane are still a common sight on the country roads. Apart from the rapidly-expanding town of Chaguanas, the area is dotted with sleepy, predominantly East Indian agricultural villages which maintain their traditional lifestyle.

No trip to Trinidad would be complete without a journey through the whispering canefields, with their flowering "cane arrows" shimmering in the sunlight. A 15-minute drive from Port of Spain, the old Southern Main Road swings south off the Churchill-Roosevelt Highway, near the Valsayn roundabout. The road winds through the canefields, past the straggling villages of Caroni and Cunupia, and through Chaguanas where the Lion House, immortalised by novelist VS Naipaul in A House for Mr. Biswas, still stands.

South of Chaguanas, the Southern Main Road offers the opportunity to see the region's traditional potters at work. Urns, ashtrays, water jugs, and the small shallow cups used for deyas (the tiny flickering oil lamps that light up the night during Divali) are fabricated and fired by methods that probably haven't changed for a century. And they are sold at extraordinarily low prices.

Continuing down the Southern Main Road, a right turn at St Mary's Junction will take you through an avenue of tall royal palms to Waterloo Village, which lies on the coast overlooking the Gulf of Paria. Several hundred yards out to sea lies the "floating mandir", a reconstruction of a Hindu temple, built single-handedly in the post-war years by one Siewdass Sadhu, a humble labourer.

An alternate to the Southern Main Road is the Brasso Tabaquite Road, accessed through Longdenville, close to Chaguanas. The hour-long drive to Tabaquite, through the citrus-growing Caparo Valley and then up into the woods of the Montserrat Hills, is one of the most beautiful in Trinidad.

Back at the Brasso Junction the road turns west, following the Montserrat Hills through the old cocoa estates of San Antonio, San Jose, Esperanza and Santa Maria; and the settlements of Pepper Village, Gran Couva and Preysal. Many old cocoa sheds with their sliding roofs are visible from the road.

The La Vega Estate, just off the road between Brasso and Pepper Village and open to the public, is an oasis of colour. Its nurseries grow many varieties of exotic tropical fruits, flowers and plants. A man-made lake offers fishing and canoeing; and there's a picnic site surrounded by its own ornamental lake.

There are other routes into Central Trinidad, leading off the Churchill Roosevelt Highway. The Tumpuna Road near Arima leads south to San Rafael, a centre of parang music; and on past some of the few surviving cocoa estate houses. It goes through Talparo to remote Mundo Nuevo, where wild game is still abundant.

A much longer journey begins on the far side of Sangre Grande and swings south down the Plum Mitan road, through Biche and into the Nariva Swamp, a wetland area which is home to many rare species of wildlife including the Manatee (sea cow).

Closer to Port of Spain, off the Uriah Butler Highway, birdwatchers will want to visit the Caroni Bird Sanctuary, where the spectacular Scarlet Ibis, Trinidad's national bird, return in their numbers each night to roost. Boat tours into the swamp leave around 4:00pm.