Beebe Bahrami and The Way of the Wild Goose
Sandie Sedgbeer: Yeah. Well, your work has appeared in so many magazines now, including BBC Travel, archeology, wine enthusiasts, the Bar, Bon Vivant, and many more. And you also do some work with the Smithsonian Journeys tours, don’t you?
Beebe Bahrami: I do. I do. I’m one of their experts, and I hope you know I’ll be on one of their trips soon. The pandemic threw a huge monkey wrench into that.
Sandie Sedgbeer: So, of all the different places you have walked, traveled, and seen, is there any particular part of the Camino that’s your favorite? Is the Camino your favorite of them all?
Beebe Bahrami: That’s a really hard question because I love all of Southwestern France and all of Northern Spain. And especially one of my methods of learning about a place is I walk. So I spend a lot of time in the Dordogne, and a lot of knowledge of the culture I’ve gained from long walks across the countryside and stopping to talk to farmers, herders, and winemakers. So I really love that area. And I really do love all of the Camino. I have favorite places for different reasons. I love the Pyrenees Crossing because it’s so dramatic, beautiful, and remote. I mean, if you can’t get wifi, that’s just such a gift to be in a place like that. But, and, you know, crossing Navarrenx is just so beautiful. It’s like Shire country. Galicia is gorgeous for its incredible green forests and misty Valleys. I love it all. I love it all.
Sandie Sedgbeer: Do you not want to move there to leave America and go and live in France or Spain?
Beebe Bahrami: I do, I do. I’d love to have a foothold here and a foothold there, which is what I’m doing right now. But at some point, I’d really like to have my main base be probably Southwestern France. Then I’ll be ever ready to get on the Camino and cross the Pyrenees and walk across Northern Spain.
Sandie Sedgbeer: You made a wonderful friend when you stayed in France.And there a little town or village that you are particularly fond of, and she was like a mentor to you, a wise elder. Is she still with us?
Beebe Bahrami: She is. Thank you for asking about her. Her name is Bernadette. She just turned 89 and is in sarlat, my home base, when I’m in Europe. So I will go there, and I always touch in with her first. And she really is like the wise woman met at the fork in the road, who has words of guidance and advice. I mean, she is a goose in that sense. The Guide and Guardian and each of my pilgrimages is held by her. It’s framed in the beginning and in the end. And she always would want to send me off with words of wisdom. And then, when I’d come back after El Camino and go to Sarlat, she’d want to sit down with me and get the full download and then have something uncanny that would fully unlock the whole mystery of what that walk had been about.
Sandie Sedgbeer: Have you found that any other routes also feature the Goose?
Beebe Bahrami: Yeah, I think there is because following the folklore trail, Jacob Grimm in Teutonic Mythology wrote about the Goose footed goddess. And he said there’s a goose-footed goddess across Europe. You know, there’s one in Scandinavia, one in Southern Germany, one in Southern France that there are all these beings, in across northern Spain. And I think that anyone walking any of the Camino routes, like the Jacobs Way (Jakobswege) in Germany or the Saint Jacques way (* )in France, would find them,
Sandie Sedgbeer: You know, there is a walk-in trail in Victoria, BC, British Colombia, and I used to walk it a lot, and it’s called the Goose. And everybody calls it, I don’t know if they call it the galloping Goose, but it’s known as the Goose. So, we are walking the Goose. And I used to walk it every day when I lived there. And, it never even occurred to me, I hadn’t read your Book, that there may be some other significance to that name.
Beebe Bahrami: Oh my goodness. Since you’ve walked it now, you can reflect on it and see what comes up for you. This your Goose walk … Yes. And I’m going to look into that. That’s exciting.
Sandie Sedgbeer: Yeah. So, before we close, tell us about your two blogs. You’ve got Cafe OC and the Pilgrim’s Way Cafe.
Beebe Bahrami: Yes, You know, Cafe OC is really about life in southwestern France. And the Pilgrim’s Way Cafe is about seeing life from the cadence of the feet, of footsteps, and, um, you know, very much about the pilgrim life, but also about exploring the world by walking.
Sandie Sedgbeer: How often, how often do you post blogs there?
Beebe Bahrami: I haven’t posted as often lately. But I’ve been wanting to get back to it, you know, if there’s book news, I definitely post there and on social media. But the blogs will still be where I put my book news and website.
Sandie Sedgbeer: Yeah. I can imagine that you, you, you, you will have more material when you are actually in France and Spain. So what do you do when you are not traveling, and you’re not writing about this?
Beebe Bahrami: I’m still traveling through my notes, and I’m still writing about it. Right now, I’ve just come back from spring and summer in France and Spain, and I’m going over all those notes and looking for the next stories, and I think there are a few in there. Sometimes it’s one line that somebody says, and I realize there’s a whole story built around that one sentence. So I’m still writing and traveling even when I’m not on the Camino about the Camino or in Southwestern France.
Sandie Sedgbeer: Does it get harder each time you go, I mean, you know, with age or to walk the Camino
Beebe Bahrami: To walk? No, it presents challenges and gifts, always in a different combination. So it’s the same hard and wonderful, but different each time because I’m meeting different people. Yeah. This time I would say the challenge was I was walking during probably one of the busiest times of the year, after the pause of the pandemic had ceased. Everyone wanted to be out there and travel, and they had bucket lists. And there were so many people, and there was a point where it was almost overwhelming as much as I was just so happy that the life on the Camino was back, especially the people who live from the Camino and Yeah. It’s very much a cottage industry for them, so. Yeah.
Sandie Sedgbeer: Well, Beebe Bahrami, it’s lovely to speak with you. Your Book is a real treat to read. I’d recommend it to anyone. Thank you so much for joining us today.
Beebe Bahrami: Oh, thank you, Sandy. It’s been such a joy and honor to be with you. Thank you very much.
Sandie Sedgbeer: You’re welcome. So, the Way of the Wild Goose three pilgrimages following geese, stars, and hunches on the Camino de Santiago by Beebe Bahrami is published by Monkfish Book Publishing and available wherever good books, especially travel books, are sold. For more information about Beebe Bahrami, visit https://beebebahrami.weebly.com.
(1) The Board Game in Longrano: https://www.tournride.com/logrono-the-game-of-the-goose-and-the-way-of-saint-james.
(2) Other names for the Way of the South are Chemin d’ Arles and Via Tolosana.
(3) Strabo was a Greek geographer, philosopher, and historian who lived in Asia Minor during the transitional period of the Roman Republic into the Roman Empire.
About Beebe Bahrami
Beebe Bahrami is an anthropologist, writer, and travel journalist who has written extensively about different regions’ culture, history, and traditions, particularly the French Pyrenees and the Camino de Santiago pilgrimage route.
She has authored several books, including “The Spiritual Traveler: Spain,” “Café Oc: A Nomad’s Tales of Magic, Mystery, and Finding Home in the Dordogne of Southwestern France,” and “Women and Travel: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives.”
Bahrami is also a contributing writer for National Geographic Traveler, and her articles have appeared in numerous publications, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, and Archaeology. She is known for her vivid and evocative writing and her ability to convey the nuances of culture and place to her readers.
In addition to her writing, Bahrami is a professor of anthropology and has taught at several universities in the United States and France. She has also led cultural tours, and pilgrimage walks in the Pyrenees and along the Camino de Santiago and is an expert in the anthropology of pilgrimage and travel.
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