Four people arrive on an island in search of their friend who disappeared near Lake Titicaca, but the Aymara community that found his corpse refuses to return his body for superstitious reasons.
Lake Titicaca, 1984. Renowned La Paz engineer Morgan Cabrera drowns in a boating accident. An unfruitful search for his body comes to a halt when confirmation arrives from a faraway island. A task group sets off to retrieve the corpse: Engineer Peralta, his associate; Engineer Kunurana, assistant; officer Rilber Silva, a seasoned local policeman; Saturnino Poma, a bilingual community member who besides navigating the boat, will become the translator for two confronting worlds. The story begins with the group aboard a small boat and chronologically narrates the events of a single day, in the lives of the characters. When the engineers arrive, the community members, who speak only Aymara, refuse to return the corpse, because according to their sacred beliefs, doing so would ward off the possibility of a bountiful harvest. When the community members finally allow them to take the corpse, it never reaches its destination.
