Fernando, Isabelle and their son, Miguel, settle in Arica, a frontier town in Peru. They intend setting up an "adventure tourism" business. They find Guillermo, a childhood friend, living there. He directs fake television programmes which he sells to European stations. The couple's business prospers, but carried away by his enthusiasm, Fernando joins a powerful finance group of dubious repute. He sacrifices his family, his friends and their communal utopia of an "Independent Republic." Isabel is unwilling to be hostage to this new life. She leaves Fernando and makes her own way, for a time finding refuge in the love that Guillermo has always expressed for her. Inevitably, their ties are broken, and soon all that's left of the "Independent Republic" is the drawing that Miguel preciously protects in his bedroom.