End of the 20's. 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.