The sound of an alarm starts shrieking and 22 sleeping pilgrims begin to stir. The “albergue” is filled with the sounds of bunk beds creaking and backpacks rustling as we prepare to pack, lace up our shoes and head back out on the trail, all before the sun rises. It is another day walking the Camino de Santiago, or The Way of St. James, across Northern Spain. We are hundreds of kilometers away from where we started out in León, and even farther from the Fordham classroom where we met regularly throughout the spring semester in anticipation of this trip.
The course Study Tour: Medieval Spain, culminated in walking the Camino de Santiago pilgrimage route across Northern Spain, to the legendary burial site of St. James in the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela. The medieval history course fulfills the interdisciplinary capstone course in Fordham’s core. English, history and computer science majors alike united over the ancient pilgrimage route, what it means to be a pilgrim, and the rich history and culture of the places we trekked.
“I knew that the walk itself would be very cathartic and spiritual, and I wanted to experience that,” Nérissa Blot, Fordham College at Lincoln Center (FCLC) ’25, said.
Fordham students have taken this course and walked the Camino for over seven years, initially under the guidance of Richard Gyug, professor of history and medieval studies, before he passed the torch to professors David Myers and Christina Bruno. This was the first year Fordham has offered the course and made the journey since the pandemic.
“This Camino allowed students to reconnect with each other, their faculty, and their education in a personal way, face to face,” professor Myers said.
No matter how much time we spent in class preparing for this trip, no amount of walking around New York City could prepare us for trekking up and down mountains and through long shadeless stretches of relentless sun in rural Spain. We were also encouraged to pack light. According to professors Bruno and Meyers: “Your pack is your fears,” the more you pack on your back, the more fear you carry with you.
I would sometimes walk for miles without seeing any other pilgrims, and find myself completely alone with my thoughts, blown away by an incredible sense of peace.
On the morning of the third day, we set out on the trail. With my backpack strapped and ready, I embarked from the hostel on my own, with only professor Bruno’s words in my head telling me: walk to the Cathedral and I would know where to go from there. However, when I got to the Cathedral, I found myself turning around in circles, completely lost on where to continue. To my surprise, I suddenly began to spot the Camino’s characteristic yellow arrows, which I never noticed during our past few days in León, scattered along curbs and building walls everywhere. I began to follow them.
I would sometimes walk for miles without seeing any other pilgrims, and find myself completely alone with my thoughts, blown away by an incredible sense of peace. I had removed all social media apps from my phone and kept it in my backpack throughout the day, determined to eliminate all the distractions of my normal life. I only took photos on a digital camera and kept a journal I had bought specifically for the Camino always on hand.
We were each tasked with creating our own travel narrative to submit to our professors as our final project at the end of the journey. The journal entries I wrote daily on the Camino, documenting the emotional and physical highs and lows of my pilgrimage experience, would later serve as part of my final project for the course.
The interactions that we had with other pilgrims we encountered surpassed language barriers and cultural differences.
During the pilgrimage, we had to learn to adapt quickly as our accommodations varied each day, from small rooms with bunk beds we shared with 10 or less of our classmates, to sleeping in a huge room of 150 pilgrims all together. The distances we walked also varied, ranging anywhere between 20 to 30 kilometers a day.
Once we each found our own pace, we alternated between walking by ourselves for stretches and walking alongside people with similar paces, whether it be classmates or strangers. The interactions that we had with other pilgrims we encountered surpassed language barriers and cultural differences.
“As I walked, I realized it’s incredibly easy to talk to people when you’re walking for eight hours a day. At a certain point the words just start flowing out of you because you have nothing else to do to distract yourself from the blisters and the heat,” Matthew Hayes, Fordham College at Rose Hill ’24 (FCRH), said.
Another of my classmates said that while struggling through one of the longer walks and limping from blisters, two pilgrims offered to carry her backpack and shared medication to prevent future blisters.
“It was a really kind, genuine gesture from two strangers that I really appreciated,” Christina Ou, FCLC ’25, said.
Ou also said she encountered a fellow pilgrim who spoke the same Chinese dialect as she and her family. Moved by the comfort and familiarity of speaking with this stranger, the two kept in touch and later bumped into each other upon arriving in Santiago on the last day.
Upon our triumphant arrival, under a refreshing drizzle after days of relentless sun, the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela appeared within view. We dropped the backpacks off our backs and celebrated alongside the other pilgrims. We then attended a special mass for pilgrims inside the glorious Cathedral before going to the Pilgrim’s Office to receive our official “compostelas,” or certificates of having finished the Camino.
As we sped through towns and regions it had taken us several days to traverse, on the bus back, It felt as though we were retracing our steps through the entire past two weeks on the Camino. The beauty of our two weeks on the trail lay in the slow pace of life we experienced, the evenings we spent sharing meals and conversation with other pilgrims, the rivers we swam in, the medieval churches we prayed in, the aches and pains we endured, and the mountain peaks where we looked back and marveled at how far we had come.
Now, as we resume our lives as students back at Fordham, the challenge remains in trying to live life as we did on the Camino.