When the boat is near the Greek shores and they hope they will soon disembark, a marine patrol approaches and Elias jumps into the sea in order to avoid arrest.

In the meantime nasty things happen to him: he is raped by the manager of the hotel and in another occasion he is obliged to clean a toilet with his hands because a tenant considers him to be a plumber.

He also happens to witness the arrest of a friend of his, an illegal immigrant, who is discovered hiding near the hotel.

He also sees the dead bodies of two immigrants who didn’t make it and drowned trying to swim to shore.

A middle-aged German woman named Christina (Juliane Köhler) wants him as her lover and offers him refuge in her room.

A peasant woman passes by with her tractor and takes Elias to her home; there he helps her sell birds and is friendly with her children.

The other day he continues his hitchhiking and a couple of Greeks with a Mercedes help him, but some time later they disagree concerning his presence, quarrel and abandon him in snowy mountains.

Then he finds a job in a factory, but he realises that his employer is not going to keep his promise and take care of the immigration process.

Also, when he tries to eat in the same restaurant with the local employees he is pushed back and this racist episode compels him to run away again.

When he leaves he sees two other trucks approaching the encampment and questioning the gypsies where the thief they’ve just helped is hiding.

Finally he finds the magician giving a performance from a beautiful, red Citroen DS cabriolet in the street.