The guide book in 1986 for Peru said South Americans (or maybe just Peruvians specifically, I can’t remember now) will give you any answer rather than say they don’t know.
We found this out first hand one day in Cusco/Cuzco when we were trying to track down a travel agency.
The guide book said it was on Street X, which was a long road. We walked up and down the entire length of Street X, but couldn’t see the travel agency.
At some point somewhere in the street, we asked a local, who pointed us up the street, without any hesitation. We were sure we hadn’t seen the travel agency on that stretch when we were there a few minutes earlier, but since the local man confidently and instantly pointed that way, we took his word for it. Went the whole length of that stretch. Nope, no travel agency.
Walked back down the street, saw a policeman at half point and asked him, who confidently pointed us down the street. Ah, the local man had been wrong then. Went the whole length of that stretch, but no, there was no travel agency there either. So, even the policeman chose not to admit that he didn’t know.
Two hours later, after having walked up and down that street n times, we found out (can’t remember how now) that the travel agency had moved to another street but the guide book had not known about the move or had failed to note it.
(Peru, 1986)
PS: Actually, re-reading this, it has just occurred to me that the local man and the policeman might not have completely made it up. They might've remembered it from its former siting, i.e., it HAD indeed been on that street before. It's just that those two men didn't get the section of the street right: whether it was up one end or down the other.
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