In 2010, I lived in Chile for 9 months. It was a memorable time in my life. I lived through one of the country’s worst earthquakes. I went through transitions professionally and romantically. I caught a glimpse at bilingualism in the distance.

There are many countries I have yet to visit, countries still on the bucket list. But I still prioritize visiting Chile to deepen an already deep experience.

In 2012, I returned and wrote a piece titled The Sweep of Nostalgia and quoted Joan Didion’s advice — remain on nodding terms with your past. I still believe in that advice — at least being able to nod at selective elements of your past. Staying in touch with Chile is part of that process.

I visited Chile again a couple weeks ago — a 2018 visit. Returning to a place you once knew well shakes loose old memories, like dusty old photo frames that tumble down off shelves if you open a cabinet door that’s been shut for some time. The memories are not necessarily significant. Random stores. Random streets. Random metro stops. “Oh yeah, that thing” is a routine thought during these occurrences. Not profound. Unless you consider it profound that our brains store a gazillion memories that are not bubbling at the surface and need active prompting to surface — and that is kind of profound if you think about it.

One of the more touching moments on my latest visit happened at my old apartment building. I went back to the building in the Providencia neighborhood. I told the doorman I used to live in the building some years ago, and asked if he’d let me enter to take the elevator to the roof and look out. After a bit of mental jogging, he said, “I remember you!” I stared at him and then remembered him as well. Same guy working the door after all these years. Some things really don’t change very much.

The subway is still excellent (and my transit card from 2010 that I’ve held onto still had value on it!). The andes mountains are still beautiful. The Chilean friends I made all still live in Santiago — no one has moved away.

Of course some things do change in a decade’s time. For example, everyone in Santiago has a smartphone now. I lived there pre-iPhone. Had I an iPhone and data plan in 2009, I would not have gotten lost nearly as often. I wonder how my experience would have been different had I nailed every turn-by-turn…

Mainly, the feeling I get when I think about my time in Chile is about how much time has passed in my life. I’m older now; I look much older in photos today versus my photos from then. So much has happened in my life since then. I do feel a tinge of sadness thinking about it. When I lived in Chile, I was in my early 20’s, living abroad, with so much possibility in front of me. So little constraint. I live a far more constrained life today. All by choice and I’m happy with my choices, but enough years have piled up now where I can look back and draw out multi-year detailed maps for how my life could have gone had I made different choices at different juncture points.

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I should note a few practical things my partner and I did on the most recent trip to Chile. Agua de Ramon park is wonderful and just 20 mins from uptown Santiago. The new Costanera Center tower is cool — the tallest building in Latin America. A sunset drink atop the W Hotel offers remarkable views. And the Ritz Carlton Santiago is a wonderful hotel; the club lounge is very much worth upgrading for — 3 meals a day served there and they’re exceptional. I worked full time from the hotel so it was a good location to do that from.

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I’ll repeat the ending from my previous post on Chile:

Some months ago, I watched saw the beautiful documentary Nostalgia for the Light. It’s about the astronomy done in the Atacama desert in the very north of Chile. Here’s the trailer. The Atacama desert is the driest in the world and the only place on earth with zero humidity year-round. Soon, 95% of the world’s astronomy will be done there. The film juxtaposes the work of scientists in the desert who look to the sky for answers, with old women just miles away who look to the ground for answers, searching for the bones of relatives assassinated by the Pinochet regime and buried in the desert. The film is about the connection between the past and the future, ground and sky. It’s also about memory.

In the film, director and narrator Patricio Guzman says, “Those who have a memory are able to live in the fragile present moment. Those who have none, don’t live anywhere.”

Joan Didion once advised you remain on nodding terms with your past. I returned to Chile last week to do just that.

All told, I’ve spent about 9.5 months in the long skinny country, mostly in Santiago, though I’ve been as far south as Patagonia and as far north as the Atacama desert — and most places in between. I was last there in August, 2010.

I returned to Chile for a visit because right now I’m prioritizing depth in my relationships with places and people. And also because I worry about the slow fade of memories, especially the fade of memories associated with important personal and professional experiences (such as beginning work on the book, which happened in Chile).

On my first day back in Santiago, the sweep of nostalgia was strong. Memories started coming back in bursts, like how a Polaroid photo takes shape with a few good shakes. There were things I hadn’t thought about for 15 months; the memories were in my brain somewhere, they just needed to be activated into present consciousness.

It’s funny the little things that you remember upon prompting. When I checked into my hotel in Santiago, I noticed the door handle was similar to that of my old apartment, and so was the lock and key. Door handles and locks are the same everywhere in Chile, but only in Chile. When browsing the shelves looking for a bottle of water, I had forgotten that supermarkets play American pop music hits from 10 years ago. When lying in a park listening to locals chat with each other, I had forgotten about the small idioms and slang that define Chilean Spanish, cachai? When ordering a lunch menú, I had forgotten that you should always order mashed potatoes as a side dish because while Chilean cuisine is on the whole forgettable, its mashed potatoes remain the best in the world.

Mashed potatoes may be a memory held by many, but so much of what I remembered during my trip was utterly personal. There is nothing special about a bench along Av. Andres Bello that looks out across the river to Cerro San Cristobal. Yet I once had an important stream of thoughts while sitting on that bench, so returning to it on a sunny morning while listening to “Catch Me” by Demi Lovato on my iPod was a blast.

When you call upon dormant memories, you change them in the process. You remember the most recent version of your memory + whatever present lens you’re using at the time of recall. In other words, how I changed since I left shaped how I remembered what I once experienced.

Some months ago, I watched saw the beautiful documentary Nostalgia for the Light. It’s about the astronomy done in the Atacama desert in the very north of Chile. Here’s the trailer. The Atacama desert is the driest in the world and the only place on earth with zero humidity year-round. Soon, 95% of the world’s astronomy will be done there. The film juxtaposes the work of scientists in the desert who look to the sky for answers, with old women just miles away who look to the ground for answers, searching for the bones of relatives assassinated by the Pinochet regime and buried in the desert. The film is about the connection between the past and the future, ground and sky. It’s also about memory.

In the film, director and narrator Patricio Guzman says, “Those who have a memory are able to live in the fragile present moment. Those who have none, don’t live anywhere.”

The 5th largest earthquake in history (8.8) struck Chile one year ago, today. La Tercera is doing a bunch of one-year anniversery coverage, including a blow-by-blow that begins at 3:34 AM with a 30 second video of security camera footage. Captures the feeling well. Here's an article in English about the recovery effort a year later in the hardest hit areas.

I just spent an hour reading some articles, looking at old photos, and reflecting on the earthquake and my time in Chile more generally. For a second I couldn't remember the names of either of the main newspapers in Santiago. It's not the first instance I've found myself forgetting details, memories, or Spanish words that I used to know so easily. It's sad to notice memories slipping away. But no matter how much time passes, I know I will never forget el veintisiete de febrero, 2010.

Governments round the world are trying to stimulate entrepreneurship. The Chilean government recently announced a bold initiative that stands apart from the usual innovation and start-up handwaving. They are seeking two dozen entrepreneurs who want to move to Santiago for six months to get their company off the ground. The Ministry of Economy will give you US $40,000, take care of your immigration stuff, set you up with local entrepreneurs and mentors, bank accounts, and temporary office space. You do not have to stay in Chile beyond the six months, although their hope is that you do, or at least keep a satellite office or development team in Santiago. In a nutshell: you are being paid to live in Chile for six months to work on your business. All you have to do is apply on the Start-Up Chile web site with info about your background and business idea.

Several people have emailed me about this program. My basic take is that it’s a great deal for young entrepreneurs who need to put their heads down and build a prototype. Beyond the seed funding, you enjoy a lower cost of living — perfect for a bootstrapping coder. Plus, as loyal blog readers know, Santiago is a great city for work and play, replete with enough interesting entrepreneurs and investors to keep you stimulated. Actions speak louder than words: I lived in Santiago for eight months.

The big downside of Start-Up Chile, assuming you’re not targeting Chile or the Latin America market, is you are leaving your customers, partners, and potential investors, whose feedback is especially important in the early days. Skype can only take you so far when it comes to customer development and fundraising. Plus, Chile is as far away as anywhere — SFO-Santiago takes longer than SFO-Tokyo. English print media such as the Economist and the FT do not distribute to Chile. Of course it’s easy to read news online, but this is telling of Chile’s isolation and small population (and even smaller English speaking population). Don’t think you’ll fly back and forth like you would to and from Mexico.

Despite its obvious limits, Start-Up Chile is a terrific opportunity for many high-tech entrepreneurs. It should also be a point of interest for other countries looking to foster innovation — does this rather large investment of taxpayer money actually increase local entrepreneurship in the long-run? Can outsiders effectively infect the culture with their entrepreneurial impulses? Time will tell, but I am not surprised in the least that it is Chile leading the way with this high-risk, high-reward approach.

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I recently wrapped up my eight month adventure living in Santiago. I am proud to have fulfilled my goal of living in another country for a meaningful amount of time — a goal first set on my 18th birthday. Although I did not achieve fluency in Spanish (for various reasons to be explained later), I do know probably six or seven thousand words in Spanish, I got around the city fairly easily, and I could read a major newspaper cover to cover.

I experienced three historic events while there. First was the election of Sebastian Piñera, the first president not of the Concertacion political party which had ruled Chile since Pinochet. I remember the campaign, the debate, and the honking in the streets all night after the votes were tallied. Second, the fifth-largest earthquake in history shook the country on the 27th of February. I have distinct memories of that night and the subsequent days. The looting on television, the empty grocery store in my neighborhood, the aftershocks that continued for weeks and weeks, tsunami warnings, and virtually every news report referencing el terremoto del veintisiete de febrero. Third, The Chilean soccer team won two big games in the World Cup for the first time in 50 years. The country was captivated and it was hard not to be swept up in the fervor.

Chile will always carry a special place in my heart. It is a physically beatuiful country and singularly diverse in its various landscapes. The people are hard-working and kind. Its economic success is remarkable. It takes a certain patience and perspective to appreciate a city like Santiago compared to its flashy neighbor, Buenos Aires. But I like its underratedness. Of course there are things I do not miss about being there; it is an imperfect country. The flaws do not outweigh my fundamental fondess and admiration for the place. Un gran abrazo a todos mis amigos en Chile.