At 42, the widower Elías Salgado sees how his life silently goes by between work, the bar and his home in Illapel, a small town in northern Chile. Dissatisfied with life's quietness, he searches without success a way to leave behind fifteen years of working as the town hall's cashier.

Everything seems to change when his daughter Asunción (10) accidentally discovers the power to find ground water by dowsing, a pseudoscientific activity that allows to find objects using tools such as a Y-shaped rod or a pendulum. After doing a quick research on the subject and sharing with her father the secrets of her new gift, Asunción joins him on a journey, visiting several semi-arid properties lacking this vital resource.

Soon, their family economy improves slightly and Elías seems to find a way out of the state of ennui that overwhelmed him. Expectations improve to the point that he decides to quit his job, but must do so behind his mother, Rebeca (70). She is very influential on Asunción's formation and does not welcome any fall in her granddaughter's school performance.

This situation, combined with a stagnation of this business, triggers a crisis within the family group that brings out and makes visible Elías and his mother's wounds. This will provoke in Elías sudden changes in behaviour: some days being euphoric and others not even capable of getting up. Asunción becomes very concerned with her father's mental health, and ends up refusing to continue looking for ground water. This however will only provoke in him a crisis, a manic crisis.

After her First Communion, and without the presence of his father who has been admitted to a hospital, Asunción understands that only through dowsing will be able to afford her father's medical treatment. With her grandmother she engages on what could be a long journey through the northern desert.
 

Ariela (46), a Bolivian immigrant, has been working  for  eight  years  as  housemaid in the home of a Chilean family. While Ariela takes care of the daughter of that family, her own daughter Nayeli (7) goes to school full time and then waits in a precarious ballet workshop for Ariela to pick her up. Ariela has lost contact with her parents, because they refuse to talk to her since she left the Aymara community where she grew up, however, her mother's health leads her to go on a trip to Bolivia so  Nayeli  can  meet  her  grandmother. Ariela and Nayeli board a bus, but the loss of a purse with documents forces them to stay stranded at the border. Ariela decides to call a former boyfriend who lives in that town to help them. In this desolate place Ariela  discovers  the  human  limits,  that the past is irreparable and how far she is willing to go to protect her daughter.