Gilberto, a young man from the countryside, arrives in the city with the aim of carving out a future for himself. Initially he is dazzled by the sparkling image of the city, the spoiler of civilization, which will batter him until his personality undergoes a radical change.
The captain of a small vessel, regularly sailing between his home island of Margarita Island in the Caribbean and the Venezuelan mainland, has two separate and very different relationships. At home, he is happily married, having named his boat Isabel after his wife. Yet on his visits to the port of La Guaira, he has a passionate affair with Esperanza, a woman working in a seedy cabaret who tries to retain him with hexes and spells.
