During a stopover on her way to Chile, Maria recognizes a nursery rhyme in Buenos Aires. Maria doesn't speak a word of Spanish, but without understanding what she is singing, she remembers the Spanish lyrics. Disturbed and thrown off course, she breaks off her journey and wanders through the unfamiliar city. On the phone to Germany she tells her father, Anton, about her experience and the peculiar fascination the unfamiliar city has on her.

Two days later, Anton suddenly turns up at Maria's hotel with something to confess: Maria spent the first three years of her life in Buenos Aires during the military dictatorship at the end of the 1970s, until the people she had always thought were her parents adopted her and brought her to Germany. Father and daughter begin a journey together in search of Maria's biological parents. Anton does everything he can to not lose his daughter.