It was not telepathy it was memory and the simple fact that Christian was not hungry. I doubt they could get near the lion today without becoming  a  main course.

what a lovely story

Wow, that story has REALLY been worked up from when I last saw it a few years ago.  When I first read it at a site that confirmed it, they were zoo keepers rather than just "a couple of friends" and they went out there for a 1-2 month trip.  Part-way through (ie, not straight away) they stumbled across him.  I think the two people in question must have gotten sick of people asking for confirmation of that video so just confirm the raising and meeting up, but nod and say yes to the rest rather than explaining in fine detail how the story the person they're talking to is wrong in some spots right in others.

OK! OK! OK!!!!!!!!!

I was just going by the snopes report, nothing else.

Snopes disallows cut-n-paste, but toward the end of that link (if you read it), it states the lion had not been seen in almost a year, then just showed up the same day they did...

Here you go:

John Rendall and Ace Berg continued to make sporadic visits to Kenya, but mostly they followed Christian's adventures from afar.
Finally, in 1974, George Adamson wrote to say that the pride was self-sufficient. Christian was defending it. There was a litter of cubs. They were feeding themselves and rarely returned to camp.
The King's Road lion had finally adapted to the wild.
This was a bittersweet moment for all concerned. Rendall and Ace decided to travel to Kora one last time, in the hope of being able to say goodbye, though Adamson warned them that it would almost certainly be a wasted mission.
"Christian hasn't been here for nine months. We have no reason to think he's dead & there have been no reports of lions poached or killed. But he may never come back," he said.
Rendall recalls, "We said: 'OK. We appreciate that, but we'll come anyway and see you.'"
They flew to Nairobi then took a small plane to the camp in Kora, where Adamson came out to meet them.
"Christian arrived last night, " he said simply. "He's here with his lionesses and his cubs. He's outside the camp on his favourite rock. He's waiting for you."
Adamson and his wife Joy often talked about the mysterious, apparently telepathic communication skills of lions & particularly between lions and men.
Both believed that lions were possessed of a sixth sense and George was convinced that a scientific explanation would one day be found.
And here, it seemed, was the proof.
"Christian stared at us in a very intense way," says Rendall. "I knew his expressions and I could see he was interested. We called him and he stood up and started to walk towards us very slowly.
"Then, as if he had become convinced it was us, he ran towards us, threw himself on to us, knocked us over, knocked George over and hugged us, like he used to, with his paws on our shoulders.
"Everyone was crying. We were crying, George was crying, even the lion was nearly crying."
Unfortunately, that reunion was the last anyone saw of Christian, and fourteen years later, Christian's protector, George Adamson, was ambushed and killed by bandits.  In his autobiography, Adamson wrote of Kenya: ''Promises of solitude, of wild animals in a profusion to delight the heart of Noah, and of the spice of danger, were always honored. Today, of these three, you are only likely to encounter the danger.''
 

Proof? Some people are really open to any kind of 'proof'. Animals have an incredibly sophisticated sense of smell, linked to memory. Why wouldn't that be the reason. Telepathy.....

"Christian arrived last night, " he said simply. "He's here with his lionesses and his cubs. He's outside the camp on his favourite rock. He's waiting for you."

The pertinent point in that text is the following: He's outside the camp on his favourite rock.

So to me this hints at the regularity with which Christian visited the area. This would then mean it's a coincidence, nothing more. Cute though.