During my vacation in Costa Rica, I found the Ticos friendly, but in my experience they give terrible directions! Everything was "about 8 km straight ahead" with every Tico that I asked, even when it was actually 50 km :) Language wasn't an issue because I'm a native Spanish speaker (funnily enough, many Ticos tried to talk to me in English even when I told them I spoke Spanish natively! Though to be fair I encountered this phenomenon in many tourist-oriented countries).
I just find it funny, of course it's not a real problem. But note I don't come from a first world country, and in fact my first language is Spanish, like the majority of my fellow countrymen.
So I found it very funny that my average conversation when asking a Tico for directions went something like this:
"Hola, ¿me podrías indicar dónde queda $LOCATION?"
"Of course sir! First you take this route--"
"Perdón, hablo español."
"Suuure, sir. As I was saying..."
