You can coerce it to an int with a cast, with some caveats: It is implementation defined whether or not the size of an int is sufficient to store a pointer, and the type lets the compiler know what you want to happen when you operate one it.
If "foo" is an integer variable, then "foo + 1" returns the integer value of foo + 1, but if "foo" is a pointer, "foo + 1" returns the value of foo + the size of a pointer, for example.
So the pointer does not store any extra information, but the compiler stores and makes use of extra information about the pointer variable (not about the value itself) during compilation.
If "foo" is an integer variable, then "foo + 1" returns the integer value of foo + 1, but if "foo" is a pointer, "foo + 1" returns the value of foo + the size of a pointer, for example.
So the pointer does not store any extra information, but the compiler stores and makes use of extra information about the pointer variable (not about the value itself) during compilation.