Santiago lived as shephered in Spain and knew everything how to raise sheeps and shear them. He waited to see the Merchants daughter for a year. On they way he sees a dream and wants explaination from gypsy.
Santiago visits gypsy for explaination of his dream and comes to know that hidden treasure is waiting for him in Egypt near the pyramids. Gypsy gets assurance from him for tenth of treasure for dream explaination. He try to ignore that but gets motivated by Melchizedek King Salem in the Plaza. He determines that he will go ahead and look for his treasure. He gives six of his sheeps to King for directions. King gifts him two precious stones Urim and Thummim which will help Santiago when he is unable to read the omens.
Santiago lands in Africa and finds himself in the streets of Tangier. He realizes that Pyramids are going to take days of journey and money to cross the Sahara desert. He met with Spanish speaking Santiago who assured that will help him cross the sahara and drop him till Pyramids. But he betrayed him and took all his money for the reason to by camels. By this time Santiago was looser without any money to return or survive for food.
Santiago learns to live in those conditions and starts to work for Crystal merchant. Crystal Merchant's business was not doing so good because it was located on the hilly street. Santiago realizes that even if he works very hard for year he could not collect enough money to go to Egypt, but he had no choice.
Santiago was selling crystals better than ever as if time had turned back to old days. Santiago with his innovative ideas of making display and selling tea in crystal glasses started making lot of more money.The business grew and he have to hire two more employees. After 11 months and 9 days of arriving at africa he takes blessings of Crystal Merchant and starts his journey for Egypt. By this time Santiago had learned to converse in Arabic.
Santiago joins huge caravan which was