Eleven-year-old Julia Flores Sanabria lives in the tiny village of Cochas, 11,000 feet up in the Andes mountains of Peru. She has been learning the art of carving gourds, a 4,000-year-old Inca tradition, from her uncle Florencio. The Incas had no written language and used gourds to record their legends and history. Florencio decides that Julia is now ready to carve a gourd telling the story of her own life. Proudly, she takes it to the Sunday market in Huancayo, where hundreds of people come to buy food, flowers, woven rugs, ponchos, colourfully embroidered cloth and, of course, the beautifully carved gourds for which Cochas is famous all over the world.