A young woman, Alicia (Joghis Seudin Arias), is wandering in the wilderness on a cold and foggy day. Without warning, she collapses and is rescued by Mirichis (David Fernando Guacas), who owns a paddle boat he uses to run errands for the poor people in the misty highlands of the Andes Mountains. He delivers her to her estranged middle-aged uncle Oscar (Julio Cesar Roble) who runs a decrepit inn named La Sirga. Alicia tells him that her family all died in a violent attack on her village. The murderers may or may not have been part of the drug-fueled guerilla conflict in Columbia.
Oscar is willing to let her stay with him provided she cook meals for him and helps Flora (Floralba Achicanoy) fix up the place so it can open shortly for tourists. The two women rip off the rotting floorboards, cover the leaky roof with a tarp, and gather flowers in pots to hang on the front porch. Mirichis takes a fancy to Alicia and wants her to run away with him. She is not interested even after he gives her a wood carving. Oscar's adult son Fredy (Heraldo Romero) returns home and is worried about his father's safety; he is convinced that tourists are staying out of the area because of their fear of war.
Writer and director William Vega has made a chilling film about war and poverty which deprive so many people of their homes and send them on the road to faraway places where they must start their lives all over again. A sign of Alicia's trauma from seeing her home go up in flames is her sleep-walking. Oscar rescues her after she meanders into the lake one night and watches her from afar on another night when she buries the candle she is carrying in the swamp. This lonely man and his son spy on Alicia when she undresses at night.
Vega asks us to watch helplessly as these poor people struggle to survive with no financial resources to draw upon. Fear, in the end, is the only thing that can animate Alicia to move on.
Special features on the DVD include the short film: Simiente.
