
Gary's Tours at La CasaBlanca
Tena, Napo, Ecuador
How to talk to us or get here!
Call us: 480-327-9812 (free from the US)
Email: lacasablancahotel@yahoo.com
WhatsApp: (+1) 480-760-5961
or (+1) 480-327-9812
Want to buy the place?
Rent to own available! It's a house and a hotel combined.
Click here to read more.
We are not currently renting rooms or giving tours. Sorry!
Get away from the hustle and bustle of modern life.
La CasaBlanca in Tena, Ecuador .... is for sale!
It's a hotel with a house attached.
Buy it outright or get it on a rent to own basis.
Keep life low-key by renting rooms out by the month.
Try Airbnb or rent to students or professors from the university down the road.
Or make it your business, you can put in on every booking engine on the planet with a channel manager and forego the website even. Put on a second floor of rooms!
Or open a school, foundation, or .....
Live in a beautiful rainforest. Know your neighbors.
Walk to the store. Buy milk from a dairy farm.
A great hotel that foreigners love is just sitting there, ready for you to enjoy!
Established on TripAdvisor with over 99 excellent reviews. Ranked #2 of B&Bs in Tena!
What is it exactly? Read more farther below, but it is really just 2 big houses connected to each other by a door at the end of the hotel hallway. Each has a living room, a kitchen, a laundry room, and a common bathroom. The hotel side has 5 large bedrooms and a 6th huge one, each with its own bathroom. There’s also a 2 car plus garage with a cistern and water purification system to ensure clean water 24/7. It shares a wall with our house on one end. Our house side has 2 very large bedrooms with bathrooms and the living room/kitchen area is huge. The whole place is light and bright with tall ceilings. It is about 518m2 or 5576 ft2. The hotel side comes completely furnished with a everything you need to start renting now. Click here to views pics of the hotel and here to view pics of the rooms. Contact us using the form below with questions or for a DropBox share on pics of the house side. Scroll all the way to the bottom of this page for details on buying it outright or rent to own.
Why live here?
First, let me just briefly give you our background. I, Michelle here, came to Ecuador as a volunteer and fell in love with the area and an Ecuadorian, that would be Gary. We saw a niche in the market for a place like this and moved to the US together back in 2005, in order to raise money to build this place. We came back in January of 2010 with a 2 1/2 yr old and had two more kids here. Now we are back in the US for educational reasons for our kids, but are sooo sad to have left our real home in Ecuador! Gary's family is house-sitting the part of the building that is our house.
So why do we love it and why will you? I can only tell you why we love it and guess at why you might.
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Community: Mostly for us it is the community. At a pop. of 35,000, it's a small city, but has a small town feel. Friendly people and everything else is close by. You can walk 3 minutes down the street when you've run out of, say eggs, and then burn your breakfast because you get into a conversation with Walter or Ruby, the owners of that little store. (Walter also makes delicious fresh bread Mon.-Sat.).
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Chatting with people from all over the world: If you choose to rent out rooms to foreigners, that is. Gary and I are social people and this was especially enjoyable for us.
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Milk: We love the milk! We had milk delivered, straight from milking the cows, every Tues., Fri., and Sun. It is not processed at all. We boiled it, cooled it down, and stuck it in the fridge. When the cream comes up, you save it in the freezer until you have enough to make butter with. The milk tastes amazing, our kids grew up on it.
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Fruits galore: Besides milk, there are so many fruits here, that you just keeping finding one after another that you've never seen before. Even the bananas taste better as they are picked closer to maturity.
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Walking Distance: You can walk to several small stores, we pick up items just down the street, or a few blocks away there is a better selection (including bomber Pilsners for $1.50). On Sundays, you can walk a few blocks to a fruit and vegie market. (We come back in a taxi, though, because we are fully loaded at that point! ($1.25). You can also choose to visit the organic vegie market on Wednesdays, which is a 10-15 min. walk away (still $1.25 back by taxi).
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The nearby park: We like to get out at night when it cools down. We'll bike or take a walk to great new park nearby with walking, jogging, and biking paths, tennis and basketball courts, and soccer fields (of course!). There's also lots of street food at the park each night and a place where you can get ice cream made from all kinds of area fruits.
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Grass fed cows: The government doesn't subsidize corn, so cows are automatically grass-fed. (Though organic is harder to find.)
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The Climate: Tena enjoys a narrow temperature range of about 76F-86F. The higher end of that range is something your body gets used to over time, but know that La CasaBlanca stays at a reasonable temps due to its cement construction, high ceilings, and there are fans in all the rooms. Note that while it almost never goes above 86F, is does get below 76F occasionally at night if it has been cloudy for a couple of days. (I always knew because my coconut oil solidified when that happened!) It does usually rain at some point during the day, every day. It is the rainforest! Note that is usually does not rain all day, though it does often rain all night.
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Fantastic Whitewater: Kayakers enjoy the area as it has all kinds of different levels of rivers due to its location at the base of the Andes mountains, as it is flattening out into the Amazon.
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Finally, The Chocolate: It is cultivated here and is world class. Super yummy.
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I could go on and on. Oh, I did!!! Sorry about that!
TripAdvisor Review by Morinne O Reviewed August 10, 2018
"10 out of 10 Highly Recommend!! - This was one of the cleanest hotels that I have been to since arriving in Ecuador. The location is somewhat secluded which is perfect for listening to nature but is also within walking distance to Tena's newest park, which has something for the whole family.
TripAdvisor Review by GMK2018 Reviewed January 7, 2018
I spent over a month at La Just like home (or better!) - "CasaBlanca and felt completely at home. Gary and Michelle were incredibly nice and helped me out in several occasions when I really needed it. My favourite features: huge kitchen, lots of utensils, always CLEAN, food cupboards for each room with a locket, washing machine and dryer to use for free, good wifi, safe, quiet area of town. Can't wait to be back!
The hotel was built with foreigners in mind. You'll love it.
Find details on how to rent and what's included farther below.
Gary and Michelle, husband and wife owners.

Gari Garces: Owner / Guide
Organizes Tour Side

Michelle Klein: Owner /
Organizes Business Side
Questions?
More info on the building.
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The hotel side has a large common kitchen, living room, laundry room, 1/2 bath, 4 large private rooms with patios that face out to a backyard (with a huge bbq). It is fully furnished and comes with all the kitchen stuff like dishes and silverware, etc. etc. In the kitchen, there is also shelving, a giant food cabinet, two tables, chairs, two sinks, a refrigerator, a microwave, and an oven with a stovetop. Note that if you rent, you would need to maintain the place and fix or replace any appliances that get damaged or wear out. There is also a washer and dryer on the hotel side.
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Each room has a double bed. Room 4 also has a single bed and room 1 also has a bunkbed. All rooms have bedside tables and chairs. The 5 rooms facing the backyard have shared patios with chairs and little tables. Room 2 is handicapped accessible. The living room has 2 couches, a chair, a glass table, and a reception desk. All windows have screens and curtains. (Except for the kitchen windows that face the backyard.) (Except for the kitchen windows that face the backyard.) Click here to views pics of the hotel and here to view pics of the rooms.
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The house side has a huge combined kitchen/living room. The kitchen has an island table where we ate meals. Both bedrooms are very large, one of the bedrooms has a bathroom with a separate tub and shower with a counter with 2 sinks. The other one is wheelchair accessible with a giant shower. The house side has a laundry closet with a stone sink area around the corner.
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There are separate front entrances to the hotel and our house with two garages between them.
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Ceilings are tall, everything feels spacious and light. Cement construction keeps the indoor temp reasonable.
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Location is close to the town/small city center. it's 5 minutes by car, 15-20 minutes walking
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There is a new, great park nearby with walking, jogging, and biking paths, tennis and basketball courts, and soccer fields (of course!)
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This small city of 35,000 is filled with friendly neighbors and is safe to walk around in at night.
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Click here to views pics of the hotel and here to view pics of the rooms. Contact us to get a link to pics on DropBOx of the house side.
How to buy La CasaBlanca: Buy it outright or rent to own with a 10% down payment and monthly payments after that. We will carry you for up to 10 yrs. Write us if you would like to lease it for a shorter period.
