In Colombia just after the Great War, an old man falls from a ladder; dying, he professes great love for his wife. After the funeral, a man calls on the widow - she dismisses him angrily. Flash back more than 50 years to the day Florentino Ariza, a telegraph boy, falls in love with Fermina Daza, the daughter of a mule trader.

Five strangers on the brink of despair agree to meet and bet large in a poker game.

A usurer nicknamed The Turk is killed. Mysteriously, everyone in the village had problems with him and anyone could have been his killer.

About a kidnapped hostage's life, and the frustration his family, a special ops team, and a man in charge of delivering the ransom money all feel as they rush to save him.

Eric, a ten-year-old boy, finds himself living overnight with Gabriel, his father whom he barely knows. Seeing that the man is having a hard time building a relationship with his son and staying afloat financially, Maria Isabel, the upper-class woman Gabriel works for as a carpenter, decides to take the boy under her wing.

Rosario Tijeras has been abused by men all her life, initially by her stepfather. Years later, she works as a paid assassin, seducing men and killing them when they least expect it. She meets Emilio, a wealthy womanizer, and his best friend, Antonio, at a nightclub, and starts an affair with Emilio despite Antonio's growing feelings for her. But circumstances bring her closer to Antonio, until her past catches up with her in a devastating way.

Paola grows up in a Colombian family full of appearances: her father is a priest, her mother a psychic, and her sisters don’t live up to their parents’ expectations. She seeks independence in a world full of stereotypes and learns to live on her own terms, as a series of experiences gradually shape her personality.

It begins with the tragedy of Armero, during the course investigates the murder of a beautiful woman and on his way some people die in the end a killing and a cemetery. Emerson Roque Fierro, former policeman and private investigator shadowing, investigates the murder of "Golondrina", a beautiful young woman, occurred in a seedy hotel in downtown Bogota. Without knowing who it is, begins to understand their relationships with a motley gallery of men: a corrupt politician, connected to drug trafficking and paramilitary groups, a bullfighter cunning and good for nothing, a boxer fallen on hard times with a force so stupid as rare Lotero intellect and an insightful blind. And in the midst of this, the dark threads entangling power to everyone, and especially the poor Fierro.

A soap opera actor wants to finish Bolivar's dream of a "Great Colombia": a super-state of 5 Latin-American countries to stop institutional chaos, lack of opportunity and ignite the rebuilding of the region after 160 years of internal war.