Alberto is a Portuguese environmental engineer who decided to change his life. He travels to a West African metropolis (an imaginary and futuristic city that has both Guinea-Bissau and Luanda), where he will work as an engineer in the construction of a road between the jungle and the desert. Moved by the hostility of the elements, the oppressive heat and the loneliness, Alberto meets Ema and Ben. Like him, these two locals are driven by an impulse to escape and overcome their origins. The bond between the three becomes for Alberto the only guarantee of mental health amidst a process of brutalization and widespread barbarism that spreads among his fellow expatriates, from the construction site to the NGO offices.