In 1979, a young German woman goes in search of her fiancé, a young anthropologist studying the ruins of the Inca empire. She travels to Peru looking for him among the mysterious valleys and pueblos of the Andes. In the course of her adventures, she becomes involved in social struggles and romance with a young Peruvian mestizo, and her life is changed dramatically by events that took place during the horrors unleashed by the communist revolutionaries known as Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path). Her life becomes connected to the lives of many others through the shared suffering and the consequences of a period of terrorism that paralyzed all of Peru, among these a young North American philanthropist and a female television reporter in Lima, who help her bring her life into balance after such events. She returns to Germany to raise two boys, one her own and the other an adopted son, who returns as an adult to seek his Peruvian roots. In his quest, he discovers surprising changes, consequences of the war of terror between the guerrillas of the Shining Path and the Peruvian Army that left traces on so many innocent children.