End of the 20s Alfonso a young writer brought up in France arrives to an adventurous mining town Uyuni in the midst of the Bolivian high plateau Here he meets the beautiful Claudina a sensual strong willed chola la Misqui simi The one with the sweet lips Uyuni radiates a strange magnetism it is charged with a collective euphoria produced by the bewitching mineral The lives of the characters enter a whirl of passion ambition and frustration