Dawn breaks in the Guajira Desert, and Doris, a young Wayuu woman, wakes up uneasy in her hammock. She has had a dream she doesn't know how to interpret, and upon telling it to her grandmother and the ranchería's traditional doctor, she realizes that her cousin, who died several years ago, is asking her to exhume her remains and rebury them in the family cemetery in the upper Guajira. This ritual, called the Second Burial, is the most important event in the life of a Wayuu person and is a cathartic process that will bring Doris into direct contact with death, the spirit world, and the memories of her cousin.