Having lived in South America for 5-years, this story will cause me to sleep tonight with a smile.
Costa Rica is Central America, isn't it?
Anyways, travelling the back roads in Guatemala, our driver informed us that we may be "robbed" by "armed" locals and that we should hide our money and valuables, leaving a few dollars in our pockets to turn over to them if stopped. Nobody gets excited, nobody gets hurt. (We weren't stopped).
I wonder if that was the case here and someone forget to tell the tourists what was going on.