In 1972, Fernando goes from Porto Alegre, a southern state capital, to tiny Acegua, on the dry border between Brazil and Uruguay. There a fellow traveler would receive him, cross the huge expanse of the pampas, and deliver the young activist to party comrades in the Uruguayan town of Melo, where his exile should begin. Involved in the student movement and having been jailed, his comrades had decided he should leave Brazil, to protect himself and everyone else from his cell in the Resistance movement. The person who drives Fernando from Porto Alegre to Acegua on this journey full of fear and uncertainties is Jorge Augusto, a civil servant, respected inspector at the Treasury Office.