Philip & Frita the Transvestite She-Male

In the previous blog post 'Guatemala and Quetzaltrekkers' I referred to Philip. Philip is special and he deserves his own blog post. I also don't admit to know the accurate definitions of transgendered people (M2F or F2M) nor is this meant to make fun of transgendered people. Do whatever you want as long as you don't hurt anybody (unless they want to get hurt) is my motto. I'm only making fun of Philip, because he deserves it.

We had a pre-trek meeting at Casa Argentina and that is when we met Philip. Philip is a talker. Somebody mentioned a story about being robbed on a chicken bus. Philip pipes up and says he brought home a Guatemalan girl for New Year's Eve and was robbed by her. So now we are on New Year's Eve bed talk. Seems like kids my age feel the need to get laid on New Year's Eve, a kiss just won't do.

We are impressed, this story is starting to sound good. We start pressing him with questions; where did you meet her, how much did she get? He's allusive and doesn't want to give out anymore details, except he does let it drop: she wasn't a female, she was a she-male. Everybody else had instant eye contact with everybody else in the room. Who is this guy and are we really going to spend the next six days and nights with him? He changed the subject after that and wouldn’t give us anymore details.

About Philip; he's completely over weight, mid-forties, has salt and pepper hair, and is my height. Before we even start the trek he's talking about how he wants to be a guide with Quetzaltrekkers. Quetzaltrekkers is run by volunteer guides and they pretty much accept help from anybody.

The first day of hiking we finally get it out of him that Frita told him about his manhood before the couple got to Philip's room. Hmmm, this is getting better. The song that is instantly in my head is Mick Jagger's "Dude looks like a lady" dananana. Everybody else is humming the Crying Game movie soundtrack.



Questions still abound; how much did he steal, how did he get it, how come you still took him home, did you find her/him attractive, did you get off? This conversation is still dominating dinner time talk and finally Shar asks him "Was s/he a prostitute?" Everybody was thinking it, she just said it.

"I'm offended; I can't believe you would ask such a question. I thought you guys were my friends, I trusted you."

Wah? We just met this guy two days before. I'm not sure he knows our names yet. After that he finally tells us they exchanged back massages. Awesome, we have conversation fodder for the next day discussing whether it was a rub-n-tug or a rub-n-chug. He's obviously a closet gay. He said he likes dark hairy arms.

Fortunately he can’t hear us talk about him because, unfortunately, he's about an hour and a half behind us at all times no matter how long we wait. We distribute some of the contents of his bags to Sander's pack and anybody else who volunteers to carry some of his stuff. He really didn't know anything about backpacking. His pack wasn't packed correctly, he brought an electric shaver, seven bars of soap enclosed in a large leather bathroom bag AND no flashlight or RAINCOAT! It is obvious this guy had no idea what he was getting into, and could not read instructions the Quetzal trekkers gave us.

I was told that Quetzaltrekkers took him aside before the trek and explained to him that this was strenuous and to verify that he was in shape. Yes he replied, in shape and just did a hike the other day. Turns out the last trek he went on was in the Boy Scouts twenty years ago.

At one point during the six day trek he asked the guides why they scheduled the lunches so late in the day. "It's because your fat-ass is so slow," we are all thinking in a lunch deprived hunger state.

It wouldn't be so bad if he wasn't complaining all of the time and was truly trying to walk at a normal pace. He walked terribly slow. Alex theorized that he could walk faster he was just being pathetic. Which turned out to be true. On the last day when we had to trek through town and Philip was walking amazingly fast, because he chose to.

There were a few good things about Philip; he gave us all something to talk about, something for you to read about, and at least we weren't "that guy."